What do you think?
Bluebells
The War to End All Wars . . . and the world.
What if the world changed with the Great War? What if the future we know never occurred? It's 1917 and in the aftermath of war, a dystopian visage of climate altered by biochemical warfare, populations decimated by a virus and governments collapsed. In the isolated town of Berrima, Australia, Anna Baylon waits for her older brother, Peter - enlisted in the war years before, to return.
When all hope of Peter's return seems abandoned, the arrival of a stranger on her doorstep changes everything. Nicolas, claiming to be Peter's lover sent to safely bring Anna to Sydney where he's recovering from war wounds. But Nicolas is as mysterious as he is charming. So Anna embarks on a journey to discover Peter's fate but the entanglements of duty, love and desire may be her undoing. Or is the greater danger not be Nicolas's vampiric nature but the darkness within him? Soon Anna's fortitude is tested when faced with Nicolas's hidden truth. When mind and lives are shattered, can she forgive him?
What if the world changed with the Great War? What if the future we know never occurred? It's 1917 and in the aftermath of war, a dystopian visage of climate altered by biochemical warfare, populations decimated by a virus and governments collapsed. In the isolated town of Berrima, Australia, Anna Baylon waits for her older brother, Peter - enlisted in the war years before, to return.
When all hope of Peter's return seems abandoned, the arrival of a stranger on her doorstep changes everything. Nicolas, claiming to be Peter's lover sent to safely bring Anna to Sydney where he's recovering from war wounds. But Nicolas is as mysterious as he is charming. So Anna embarks on a journey to discover Peter's fate but the entanglements of duty, love and desire may be her undoing. Or is the greater danger not be Nicolas's vampiric nature but the darkness within him? Soon Anna's fortitude is tested when faced with Nicolas's hidden truth. When mind and lives are shattered, can she forgive him?
110 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2025
About the author
Leanbh Pearson
60 books30 followersLeanbh Pearson (Any) lives on Ngunnawal Country in Canberra, Australia. An award-winning LGBTQI and disability author of horror and dark fantasy inspired by folklore, fairytales, myth, history and climate. Leanbh’s judged numerous awards, an invited panelist and avid book reviewer. Leanbh has been awarded ASA, AHWA and HWA mentorships and 2023 HWA Diversity Grant. Leanbh’s alter-ego is an academic in archaeology, evolution and prehistory. A museum devotee, insomniac and photography enthusiast, Leanbh is always aided by canine assistants | https://linktr.ee/leanbhpearson
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 25, 2025
The more I think about this story (and I'm thinking about it a lot), the more disturbed by it I am.
It's an alternative history of the war, but it also reads to me like an alternative take on Lestat from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, which I mean as a sincere compliment. I love Rice's work but one thing that always bothered me was her handling of a certain scene in The Tale of the Body Thief (if you've read it, I hope you'll know which scene I refer to). Because Lestat is such a fun and interesting character, I think the lens we view some of his behaviour through is rose-tinted and too sympathetic towards him.
In this story, we have Nicolas, an alluring vampire who fell in love with Peter while they served together, and now (at Peter's request) he's gone to fetch Anna, Peter's sister, so they might be reunited. We initially see Nicolas as a thoughtful, careful romantic. He loves passionately and tries to mind his monstrous nature when his feelings threaten to overwhelm him. Only that's not what he is - he IS a monster. He's not romantic, he's narcissistic. He's not alluring, but manipulative. And he is cruel.
I don't know if the author intended any Lestat comparisons but either way, this was a really refreshing read for me, it almost felt like some sort of correction for how often we let these kind of characters off the hook.
It's a really engaging, interesting story that packed a lot into its page count.
It's an alternative history of the war, but it also reads to me like an alternative take on Lestat from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, which I mean as a sincere compliment. I love Rice's work but one thing that always bothered me was her handling of a certain scene in The Tale of the Body Thief (if you've read it, I hope you'll know which scene I refer to). Because Lestat is such a fun and interesting character, I think the lens we view some of his behaviour through is rose-tinted and too sympathetic towards him.
In this story, we have Nicolas, an alluring vampire who fell in love with Peter while they served together, and now (at Peter's request) he's gone to fetch Anna, Peter's sister, so they might be reunited. We initially see Nicolas as a thoughtful, careful romantic. He loves passionately and tries to mind his monstrous nature when his feelings threaten to overwhelm him. Only that's not what he is - he IS a monster. He's not romantic, he's narcissistic. He's not alluring, but manipulative. And he is cruel.
I don't know if the author intended any Lestat comparisons but either way, this was a really refreshing read for me, it almost felt like some sort of correction for how often we let these kind of characters off the hook.
It's a really engaging, interesting story that packed a lot into its page count.
October 12, 2025
The premise of Leanbh Pearson’s Bluebells: In the Devil's Garden is undeniably compelling: a genre-bending fusion of alternate history, dystopia, and paranormal romance set against the grim backdrop of a twisted First World War. The novella introduces an intriguing anti-hero in the vampire Nicolas, a self-aware creature grappling with his own monstrous nature, and a protagonist in Anna, who actively resists his supernatural manipulations. While the book successfully blends romance with a self-aware critique of vampire tropes, it is ultimately hampered by a superficial engagement with its historical setting and a narrative that often feels more concerned with romantic entanglements than the monumental stakes of its world.
You can read Terry's full review at Horror DNA by clicking here.
You can read Terry's full review at Horror DNA by clicking here.
August 25, 2025
I know other people are reading this as a gothic, somewhat bloody romance, but I disagree - I think this is a warning about the appearance of romance, when actually it's danger wrapped up in a velvet ribbon.
Excellent story.
Excellent story.
October 6, 2025
“I’ve been to war many times in my long life and I am not the oldest of my kind. It seems to me the world has always been at war.”
It’s 1917, and the Baylon family occupy a isolated property in country New South Wales. Anna and her parents anxiously await the return of her brother Peter from the war in Europe. The weather has been strange recently, a relentless drought succeeded by storms and choking black fogs. No supplies, or trustworthy reports, have come from Sydney in months. Before that, there were rumours of the war spreading, of burning cities ravaged by the mysterious Red Fever. But surely there is still hope?
Instead of Peter, there comes the handsome Nicolas de Laon. Appearing only by night, he seeks out Anna, claiming Peter has made it to Sydney on a hospital ship. Peter’s condition does not permit him to travel further, but he has requested her presence. She need only trust Nicolas to guide her.
This novel hits many of the beats of a paranormal romance, but there are more and darker things happening here. Historically, it draws on the dislocation experienced by colonials when their young men were called to die on the far side of the world, and the “forgotten” pandemic of the Spanish Flu. Tonally, it has much in common with Australian environmental apocalypses such as Cat Sparks' Lotus Blue or even Petru Popesku’s The Last Wave. As goes vampirism, Nicolas may do his best to live up to the romantic image but, as Anna quickly realises, he is as dangerous and damaged as the old world itself.
The story is simple enough, but switches from Anna’s perspective to that of Nicolas, thence to Nicolas’s recollections of the war. Anna may have spent her life on a farm but she is far from a fool. Her situation is tenuous and survival demands practicality, but her caution wavers before the temptation presented by the intruder. Nicolas, meanwhile, argues with a caustic inner voice. The things he tells Anna may shock, but the actual scenes from the front offer up a hell that he will not, cannot convey. The truths of his vampiric state are much the same – brutality underlies even the sweetest moments, as the two attempt to console each other, and is not lacking at the climax.
There are period references such as the language of flowers, oil lamps and the slowness of the mail. But Anna is very contemporary in her language and attitudes. This enables her to chafe at Nicolas’s chauvinism and to accept certain facts about his relationship with her brother without bogging things down. But it also plays into the sense of slippage I experienced. History has already gone off the rails and there are moments, such as when Anna flees the house only to find herself enveloped in utter darkness, that are quite surreal. By the book’s end, I felt this could have been any war, at any time, and that its final vision of Sydney could lie in the future. Greg Chapman seems to express this sentiment in his eye-catching cover art.
At 147 pages, Bluebells doesn’t wear out its welcome, but establishes the characters and brings their story to a satisfying conclusion. While it may appeal particularly to fans of Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula and Barbara Hambly’s James Asher vampire sequence, anyone who fancies a weird atmosphere and tragic love story might dare to give it a go.
It’s 1917, and the Baylon family occupy a isolated property in country New South Wales. Anna and her parents anxiously await the return of her brother Peter from the war in Europe. The weather has been strange recently, a relentless drought succeeded by storms and choking black fogs. No supplies, or trustworthy reports, have come from Sydney in months. Before that, there were rumours of the war spreading, of burning cities ravaged by the mysterious Red Fever. But surely there is still hope?
Instead of Peter, there comes the handsome Nicolas de Laon. Appearing only by night, he seeks out Anna, claiming Peter has made it to Sydney on a hospital ship. Peter’s condition does not permit him to travel further, but he has requested her presence. She need only trust Nicolas to guide her.
This novel hits many of the beats of a paranormal romance, but there are more and darker things happening here. Historically, it draws on the dislocation experienced by colonials when their young men were called to die on the far side of the world, and the “forgotten” pandemic of the Spanish Flu. Tonally, it has much in common with Australian environmental apocalypses such as Cat Sparks' Lotus Blue or even Petru Popesku’s The Last Wave. As goes vampirism, Nicolas may do his best to live up to the romantic image but, as Anna quickly realises, he is as dangerous and damaged as the old world itself.
The story is simple enough, but switches from Anna’s perspective to that of Nicolas, thence to Nicolas’s recollections of the war. Anna may have spent her life on a farm but she is far from a fool. Her situation is tenuous and survival demands practicality, but her caution wavers before the temptation presented by the intruder. Nicolas, meanwhile, argues with a caustic inner voice. The things he tells Anna may shock, but the actual scenes from the front offer up a hell that he will not, cannot convey. The truths of his vampiric state are much the same – brutality underlies even the sweetest moments, as the two attempt to console each other, and is not lacking at the climax.
There are period references such as the language of flowers, oil lamps and the slowness of the mail. But Anna is very contemporary in her language and attitudes. This enables her to chafe at Nicolas’s chauvinism and to accept certain facts about his relationship with her brother without bogging things down. But it also plays into the sense of slippage I experienced. History has already gone off the rails and there are moments, such as when Anna flees the house only to find herself enveloped in utter darkness, that are quite surreal. By the book’s end, I felt this could have been any war, at any time, and that its final vision of Sydney could lie in the future. Greg Chapman seems to express this sentiment in his eye-catching cover art.
At 147 pages, Bluebells doesn’t wear out its welcome, but establishes the characters and brings their story to a satisfying conclusion. While it may appeal particularly to fans of Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula and Barbara Hambly’s James Asher vampire sequence, anyone who fancies a weird atmosphere and tragic love story might dare to give it a go.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews