REVIEW: Lucy Undying by Kiersten White
Last Updated on March 13, 2025
If you ever imagined what a gothic, sapphic ‘retelling’ of Bram Stoker’s Dracula could be like, then look no further. Lucy Undying by Kiersten White is a wonderfully gothic, surprisingly emotional, and deliciously dark insight into the eternally brushed-over, ever-tragic character, Lucy Westenra.
Immortalised by Stoker as Dracula’s first tragic victim, Lucy’s death and rebirth mostly serves as a lesson to showcase the bloody, vivid reality of Dracula’s hunger. Yet, in Lucy Undying, White reclaims and empowers her.
While Lucy is undoubtedly the main protagonist throughout the book, Lucy Undying flits between two characters’ points of view. The first narrative focuses on Lucy and on what happened to her after becoming a vampire, told via excerpts from her diary as she travels from 1890s Whitby across the world up until the modern day.
These entries, filled with female rage, loss, grief and queer longing, neatly intertwine with the narrative of the other main protagonist, Iris. Heir to a ghoulish (quite literally) health empire where “blood is life”, she is desperate to escape her bloodsucking family and reclaim her own path as she moves to London to deal with clearing out her old family estate.
The two women’s stories combine effortlessly, as the two eventually meet when Lucy shows up to help Iris ‘catalogue’ the mansion, uncovering all manner of mysteries about the house and each other. Both are women trying to escape controlling figures and come to terms with their trauma and – as is revealed as the narrative progresses – it turns out that Dracula really does cast a long, horrid shadow.
I think what I liked best as I read this book was the thin sheen of gothic horror that seeped all the way through the narrative. White delightfully chips away at the mystery behind Dracula, leaving you guessing about his fate and lingering, traumatic influence on Lucy at every twist and turn. There are slightly gruesome scenes too, peppered throughout the book. Haunting scenes that include animals, stalking, creaky gothic mansions and Dracula call backs aplenty for those seeking the darker thread in the story.
The slow-burn romance between Lucy and Iris is a nice touch. Not only does she make Lucy become a more fleshed out protagonist, it adds a beautiful twist of hope and melancholy throughout.
While some might scoff at the modern twist on Dracula, and while I thought the latter quarter of the book was a little cliched, focusing more on the sinister US health empire, this was a deliciously dark book I could really sink my teeth into.
If nothing else, this made me want to go back and read Dracula all over again.
Read Lucy Undying by Kiersten White
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