The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster

by Shelley Puhak, Vivienne Leheny (Narrator)

There have long been whispers, coming from the castle; from the village square; from the dark woods. The great lady—a countess, from one of Europe's oldest families—is a vicious killer. Some even say she bathes in the blood of her victims. When the king's men force their way into her manor house, she has blood on her hands, caught in the act of murdering yet another of her maids. She is walled up in a tower and never seen again, except in the uppermost barred window, where she broods over the countryside, cursing all those who dared speak up against her.

Told and retold in many languages, the legend of the Blood Countess has consumed cultural imaginations around the world. But despite claims that Elizabeth Bathory tortured and killed as many as 650 girls, some have wondered if the Countess was herself a victim—of one of the most successful disinformation campaigns known to history. So, was Elizabeth Bathory a monster, a victim, or a bit of both? With the breathlessness of a whodunit, drawing upon new archival evidence and questioning old assumptions, Shelley Puhak traces the Countess's downfall, bringing to life an assertive woman leader in a world sliding into anti-scientific, reactionary darkness—a world where nothing is ever as it seems. In this exhilarating narrative, Puhak renders a vivid portrait of history's most dangerous woman and her tumultuous time, revealing just how far we will go to destroy a woman in power.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, True Crime, Audiobook, Biography, Historical, Crime

9 pages, Audiobook

First published February 17, 2026

Reviews

[Adam McPhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puhak is great. A book that uses the Bathory legend to jump into the history of Hungary. It's a complicated subject matter, without any familiar names or faces to help guide us along, but Puhak does a fantastic job of untangling the murky history and providing context.

More here.

Thanks to Bloomsbury for the ARC.

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came for the most prolific female serial killer of all time, but I stayed for the lessons in Hungarian politics. The main takeaway being that if you were a woman with land, someone was probably going to take it from you one way or another.

If you hop over to Wikipedia and search on female serial killers, the queen (to be factually correct, she was a countess) of them all is Elizabeth Báthory. She holds the (turns out rather dubious) "honor" of being the murderer of somewhere around 600 young girls. She reportedly enjoyed torturing them and bathing in their blood to stay young. I am being a bit flippant with the subject here because, well, none of it was real. Author Shelley Puhak tells us right off the bat in her fantastic The Blood Countess.

I thoroughly enjoyed Puhak's previous non-fiction work, The Dark Queens, (as well as her award winning poetry but that's beside the point) and The Blood Countess proves this was no fluke. This is the type of book where you can feel the sheer amount of work that went into gathering the information, getting it right, and then presenting it in a way that a reader won't get lost like they are in the forests of Transylvania. There are many vital characters, constant backstabbing, and of course religious strife that seems to never end. Through it all, Puhak shows us just how the legend of Báthory spun out of control and what the real truth probably is. I highly recommend it.

(This book was provided as an advance reader copy by NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing.)

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The Blood Countess, historian Shelley Puhak seeks to discredit a rumor that was long accepted as truth: that the Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory was responsible for numerous murders of young women so she could bathe in their blood and stay eternally young. She went down in the history books as the most prolific female serial killer of all time. An attention grabbing claim, for sure. Yet new research suggests that not a lick of it was true.

It was much more likely that the Countess was targeted because of her considerable land and property holdings and a witch hunt sought to tarnish her reputation and steal what she owned.

Puhak needs to provide ample historical context, including the stories of the noble families wielding power at the time, to make this story understandable, and so you'll find that the central story the blurb hangs its proverbial hat on is not the primary focus of the book.

[Manybooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to legend and also according to the Guinness Book of World Records, Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614) was a mass murderer and supposedly responsible for at least 610 deaths, that Bathory was reputedly so vain and so desperate to cling to her physical beauty that she had scores of young maidens brutally tortured and murdered in order to bathe in their virgin blood (and with Elizabeth Bathory also often being considered the female counterpoint to Dracula even though she was actually never considered to be a vampire).

But as Shelley Puhak and in my opinion quite convincingly (in other words with solid proofs and meticulously researched) argues in her February 2026 biography The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster, there is actually more than ample reason to believe that the legend of Elisabeth Bathory's depravity was actually made up, was totally concocted by her enemies in order to very deliberately and nastily destroy her reputation and to thereby permanently remove her from public life, that the account of the monstrous noblewoman, the elaborate torture methods, the incessant killing of innocents in a vain and narcissistic attempt to preserve her looks, yes indeed, Puhak points out and for me totally proves in and throughout The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster, that most, if not actually all of the horror stories and the rumours about and surrounding Bathory need to be understood and taken as the product of an aggressive and nastily sexist deliberate misinformation and disinformation campaign, with The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster showcasing a hybrid of true crime and feminist history, where drawing from archival research Shelley Puhak showcases how over the centuries, exaggerations, massively shoddy scholarship and outright and specifically on purpose fabrications have created the exciting, creepy but ultimately totally erroneous, ridiculous and majorly lacking in respect vision and the concept of Elizabeth Bathory the monster, the mass murderer, the epitome of evil incarnate (and of course with Bathory having died almost five-hudred years ago, she can obviously also not defend or rehabilitate herself either).

While The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster is technically speaking considered a biography, Puhak does not in fact write about Elizabeth Bathory's childhood but starts her text in 1603, a year where her eldest son died, her vast Hungarian estates were invaded by the Turks (and that in early January 1604, Bathory's husband Count Francis Nadasdy also died of the bubonic plague). But instead of capitulating (or remarrying) Shelley Puhak with The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster shows Elizabeth Bathory protecting as well as asserting individual strength and determination (in other words female power) but that due to brutal misogyny and with all the political and religious strife rampant in 16th and 17th century Europe but seemingly rather pointedly augmented in Hungary (such as an Ottoman invasion, rival claims to the Hungarian throne, a civil war that was made all the more problematic due to the Protestant Reformation) Bathory made many dangerous enemies (and often simply because she was a woman but also because he was a Calvinist woman who owned a lot of land and was thus automatically someone to discredit and worse by Hungarian male Catholics and also by Hungarian male Lutherans).

And yes, and finally, despite its rather Gothic and horror story title (and which I do find just a trifle unfortunate, not a huge deal, but still), The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster is actually somewhat less about the countess herself and more about the problematic political, religious and gender related circumstances, about the rumours, innuendos, abuse and the centuries long misinformation (and how this was continuously regenerated and expanded and continuously feeding upon the past) that gave rise to Elizabeth Bathory's unjust and also sadly pretty much complete vilification. And indeed, after now having read (and enjoyed albeit with some in my opinion righteous fury), The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster and especially Puhak's meticulous research, I most definitely totally am on Shelley Puhak's side so to speak, I absolutely do very much consider Bathory not a monster but instead a total victim (and am also rating The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster with a well deserved and solid five stars).

[cath · Rating 3 out of 5]

In summary: fuck men, religion and their stupid lies.

[Tanja Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a fictionalized account of Elizabeth Báthory of Ecsed, a Hungarian noblewoman, with the same title many years ago. That was a horror novel. I was astonished that the horrors could be based on reality. But did I ever stop to think whether they actually were? No.

This book makes me ashamed of my younger self. I have always thought myself as a rebellious free thinker. I never stopped to consider the lies that would be spun around a powerful woman just to take her down. Elizabeth’s contemporaries, women less fortunate, were accused as witches with the exact same wild tales and lies. I should have known better.

Although, as a teenager I knew very little about the European witch trials. My only account was «the Crucible» by Arthur Miller about the Salem trials in the US. That was just a short little spat of the insanity that killed tens of thousands of women in Europe across two centuries. (I guess the US is making up for lost time now though.)

So every thing you think you know about Elizabeth Báthory is a lie concocted several hundred years ago to destroy a powerful woman. There is not a scrap of evidence that she killed anyone, bathed in virgin blood and had hundreds of young women on her conscience.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really really enjoyed this and read it as a buddy read, so it was fun to discuss things as we went.
There were a few things that had me giving the book side-eye. And I would have LOVED if we had gone into a little more depth in the 'Witch Hysteria' and 'Church History' topics, which is more of a me issue. This book isn't about those things, so it's fine. But if I hadn't had years of Catholic School, I would have been lost concerning the religious/political dealings of certain figures in this book, and the atmosphere at the time. And as for the 'Witch Issue,' a lot of women's deaths and burning of them is implied that it was Witchcraft and while that was going on, to just totally disregard what happened to these women as they were 'burned as witches' in this particular event, it felt very dismissive and these women died for other reasons. I would have loved an extra two chapters to cover those two very topics. More pages would have been fine in this book for me to flesh more of this out.

All in all, really really enjoyed the book. It answered questions I had. It was clear and concise. We got to see what was going on that led to the Countess finding herself in this situation. I'll be keeping an eye out on this author in the future.

[GҽɱɱαSM · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75*
Una novel·la històrica amb elements de novel·la biogràfica sobre la figura d'Elizabeth Bathory que va molt més enllà del mite. Allunyant-se de la imatge de la "Comtessa Sagnant", Puhak investiga qui era realment la dona darrere la llegenda i, sobretot, com i per què es va construir aquesta història de terror.

I el que troba és fascinant: Bathory no era cap boja sagnant, sinó una vídua influent i culta, atrapada en les tensions religioses i polítiques de l'Hongria del segle XVII. Puhak reconstrueix aquest món amb una prosa que combina el rigor i la tensió d'un thriller, i desmunta peça a peça la campanya de desprestigi —orquestrada per homes poderosos que volien les seves terres— que la va convertir en monstre.

El resultat és una obra que es mou entre la fascinació per la foscor i un exercici de recuperació històrica feminista. Una lectura molt recomanable per a qui busqui una mirada profunda i commovedora sobre una de les figures més inquietants —i malenteses— de la història europea.

[Michelle Robbins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bored to tears honestly. Fulfilled a GoodReads Bookmark challenge, so there’s that.

[Lexi · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so disorganized. I understand the point the author wanted to make but I think she can lose a reader with the voluminous information of Hungarian history, Nadasdy family history, Thurzo family history, and the Bathory family history. It is understandable that all of it is linked but the disorganization of the information can bore the reader before getting to the interesting bits that involve Elizabeth Bathory. It was a hard read to get through I wish it was more succinct and got to the point the author was trying make.

[Evalynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read an ARC of this book, and as a woman of Hungarian (specifically, Székely) ancestry, I was so excited to do so. I believe it was the research for this book I had heard murmurings of years prior, when I once came across an article debating the validity of the claims laid against Báthory for centuries during a late-night scroll of Hungarian legends. I cannot say at this moment how much more I really learned about Elizabeth Báthory herself, but this book certainly taught me more about the people, politics, and religious tumult surrounding the accusations that this woman with a voice and power was a heartless, cold-blooded killer. She has always interested me so much, and I loved learning about her religious tolerance, belief in justice, protection of other women, healthcare practices during her era, and the events leading up to and concurrent with her being forcibly held in one of her castles until her death. I would honestly like more, please.

[Jim Holscher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history of a Hungarian murderer I never knew I needed 4 stars

This is the story of Elizabeth Bathory who many consider a serial killer with one of the highest victim counts ever.

A lot of history.
In order to properly tell the tale you have to have a grasp of Hungarian history. It was good that the author was fully up to the task as the book doesn't drag as a lot of history laden books do.

Be prepared to think!
The thing I love about a good true crime book is when facts are told without leading you by the hand to a conclusion. This was a textbook example of that kind of book

Recommendation
I would recommend this to true crime fans willing to dig in and learn a little history.

[Beda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars. I read this book in response to the Goodreads Challenge for Women’s History Month. This book is about Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary (1560-1614), who was until fairly recently credited with being the most prolific female serial killer in history. Supposedly, she killed as many as 650 young girls, sometimes bathing in their blood to preserve her youthful appearance. This carefully researched history, however, basically debunks all of this. There is zero reliable historical proof of these charges, and in fact, significant proof that she did nothing of the kind. No one can name more than one woman who may be a victim, and even that is pure speculation based on the testimony of her enemies.

See, here’s the deal. Elizabeth had land. Lots and lots of land. And she was a WOMAN with lots and lots of land. And there were men. Several men who were jealous of her and wanted to take it from her. And what easier way to do that than thru lame arse charges like witchcraft and murder, both of which she was charged with more than once by more than one greedy nobleman with big ambitions.

To complicate matters, this all played out against the backdrops of the Hapsburgs vs Hungary and Transylvania vs the Ottoman Turks AND the Catholics vs the Lutherans vs the Calvinists. So lots of drama. And consequently, lots of ways to get charged with various crimes by envious rivals desiring Elizabeth’s lands.

The book kind of bills itself as a true crime book, but it’s really not. It’s really much more straight up history. This was fine with me because I like history and until this book, knew little to nothing about Hungarian history prior to 1900. So the book was reasonably interesting to me. But I’m not sure my friends in the true crime genre would be as fascinated. There was little about Elizabeth’s crimes because there likely WERE no crimes. So this book was more about the battles between her family and the Hapsburgs and Ottoman Turks, and the political intrigues of the nobles to steal each other’s lands and in doing so, gain power.
I’m glad I read the book as now I can sport a tiny bit of knowledge of Hungarian history. But true crime? No. Not really.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Idk what I was expecting but it was unfortunately not some ‘Jeffrey Dahmer’, gory-esk story.

A majority of the book is based on history, the rich stealing each others shit, infectious, deadly diseases, and in the end not really proving whether Elizabeth was a murderer or not.

So many references to the possibility of murdering over 500 girls…. But not cause they couldn’t find the bodies?

To conclude, Queen Elizabeth the second (yes, our today’s Queen of England), married her second cousin which is a much closer incestous relation compared to the 1600’s.

[Rita Antonelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This ended up being a history lesson of 16 & 17th century Hungary (which worked for me, because I’m Hungarian.) I am assuming the low ratings are due to the people upset that the woman they spent this entire time believing to be a maniacal psychopath was ~*sHoCKeR*~ just a victim of the patriarchy. Believing that she was just used as a political pawn and accused of witchcraft is significantly easier than imagining she bathed in virgin blood, but only if you have the context and understanding of how women were treated at the time. I get that it shatters the illusion and makes people uncomfortable to lose the fabled monster, but it does not make this a bad book. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Come for the murder (little) and vampire lore (non-existent), stay for the political intrigue (so much!)

The intersection of the Protestant Reformation, the sprawl of the Hapsburg Empire, witch hunts, misogyny, and early 17th century medicine wasn't what I was expecting, but it made for a captivating read. The author makes a compelling argument for the exoneration of a (literally) legendary (alleged) mass-murderer.

[Gabrielle · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 30%

This is just info Dump after info dump, and I kept getting lost and confused.

The story kept changing course and was all over the place talking about Hungarian Politics, Religion and History, Giving both too much information and not enough at the same time. The author spoke of historical figures and events as though you should already know them, making the story more confusing if you have no prior knowledge of the subject.

I was constantly confused at all the different jumps and disappointed as I felt the book was not as described.

I was listening to the audiobook and felt the narrator was doing an excellent job because with as dry as the story was, I would have quit sooner.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The central argument of this book - that mistranslations, missing documents, and the religious and political circumstances of Early Modern Hungary have shaped our perception of "the Blood Countess" - could have been a really interesting academic article. But by dragging it out into a 300-something page book, Elizabeth starts to feel like a secondary character in her own story and we get long hypothetical exercises in "what if working class people were so uneducated that they thought medical care was torture?"

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

It sounds much more interesting than it is really. It's a good history lesson and a bit frustrating at how awful men are.

3 Stars

[Kim Kennedy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t think non fiction is for me unfortunately!

[Stay Alive · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting perspective. Elizabeth Báthory was manufactured into a monster through politics, misogyny, religious conflict and centuries of storytelling, and frankly, why doesn't that surprise me?

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.75 stars. The fact it took until the last few decades for Elizabeth Báthory's 'Blood Countess' legend to come into question is so incredibly sad.

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book reexamines the historical evidence behind these accusations. Using letters, records, and new archival research, the author explores whether Elizabeth Báthory was truly a sadistic murderer—or whether she may have been framed through political intrigue, religious conflict, and rumors by powerful men who wanted her land and influence.

The story shows how myths, fear, and power struggles shaped the legend of the Blood Countess, in my opinion a victim of propaganda.

Wonderfully inciteful. Pin points the dangers of society blindly trusting everything they hear instead of doing their due diligence of research. Such a tragic outcome of a strong women who was privileged and chose to give back - to have everything taken from her because someone else was envious and wanted her estates for themselves - or just completely misunderstood what was really happening.

[Aurora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Een interessant boek, maar er word wel heel diep ingegaan op de omliggende culturele en historische problemen rondom Elizabeth Bathory. Begrijpelijk, maar dat maakte het voor mij saaier en moeilijker om doorheen te komen. Daarnaast wilde ik meer nadruk op haar? Eigenlijk heb ik niks nieuws geleerd en bleef ik op iets duisters hopen om de mythe rondom Bathory te rechtvaardigen. Maar nee: een vrouw met macht moet gewoon zo snel mogelijk onderdrukt worden door mannen. Ugh, mánnen. It does make me angry! Enorm veel zin om nu 10 andere boeken over vrouwen en feminisme te lezen. Dus dank daarvoor.

[Alexandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Brigusz92]

Well, if you want to read some horror story, it's not for you, it's a history book.
I won't lie, it was sometimes really boring but the theory that she wasn't guilty is an interesting concept.
I don't want to give any stars because it's not a bad book but it's just not for me so it wouldn't be fair...

[Taryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is 90% 17th century Hungarian politics and less than 10% about Elizabeth Bathory. I can see why the author thought addressing the political climate surrounding her was important, but it definitely could’ve been summarized in one or two chapters. I struggled to get through it and I fell asleep multiple times while reading.

[Asia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Verdict: Informative, I’m sure. Enjoyable? Not for one second.

For anyone reading this review, please know it is heavily influenced by my complete lack of interest in historical nonfiction. I picked up The Blood Countess purely to fulfill a Goodreads challenge and because I like true crime. That is the caveat.

Now for the actual review: I was bored out of my ever-loving mind. I finished this book through sheer force of will and because the audiobook was only eight hours long. If it had been any longer, we would not be having this conversation.

To be fair, I can absolutely see the audience for this. If you’re genuinely interested in Hungarian history, the time period, religious politics, and the broader historical context surrounding Elizabeth Báthory, this might really work for you. I am interested in approximately none of those things, so this book was very much not for me.

Part of why I avoid historical nonfiction in general is that I don’t need another several hundred pages confirming that organized religion and men have been behind a shocking percentage of human misery. I was interested in learning how Báthory’s infamous legend developed and how her story became what it is now, and that aspect did keep me going. But overall? I was mostly just waiting for it to end.

So yes, I learned some things. I also suffered. And I am deeply, profoundly glad it’s over.

[Mariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The embellishment’s of Bathory’s story are now a horror story in the back of your mind. Inspiration for vampira and the extent to which one is willing to go to keep power. This narrative presents a case that poses she may be innocent of some or all her crimes. Shelley Puhak dives into the archives and history to understand the context of Bathory. A straightforward read that analyzes the archives of Bathory and her time period.
History is monumental to understanding Bathory. She presents the case documents, the history, and excerpts of Bathory’s life to present a different case that the public has not too often seen. This is a great way to think about and how women were portrayed and who was writing about them. I do not believe she (Bathory) was innocent, but this writing presents a compelling case to really question history through the research of the archives. This is a solid three due to the limiting information available despite the extensive research. And at times the writing feels a bit dry.

Read more recommendations, arc impressions, and more at
https://brujerialibrary.wordpress.com

[Bungaku Shoujo · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you search up Myra Hindley, one of the perpetrators of the 1960s Moors murders, the first page of Google will show you an article whose abstract makes the surprising statement that she was a victim. She was a victim of, among others things, her sex; because she was a woman who participated in the kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder of children, she received more vitriol in the press than her male co-murderer. While there is some truth in this, I was the one clutching my pearls that time, because this is Myra fucking Hindley we’re talking about. Surely feminists have better things to do than rehabilitate her.

Reading this book reminded me of that article, but Puhak goes further in suggesting that Bathory, though not entirely a peach, was not a murderer. This proposition is not new, and it’s even made it into pop culture representations of her. It should be noted that the twentieth-century works that aimed to portray Bathory as the victim of a conspiracy, whether based on politics, religion, or gender, were generally not written by historians, who mostly ignored Bathory until recently. A number of these works are cited in the bibliography, but citations are relatively infrequent in the text.

The theory that Puhak subscribes to is that Bathory was a healer who, alongside other medical women in her household, was simply trying to help girls using accepted yet stigmatized methods. The idea of persecuted women folk healers is one that certain feminist writers are rather obsessed with, as popular ideas about the early modern witch hunts show. A skeptical reader is left thinking that Bathory and her herbalists must have been highly incompetent, since so many people kept dying on their watch. The evidence Puhak marshals in support of this thesis did not, to me, suggest any greater interest in medicine on Bathory’s part than would be considered typical for a person of her era. Even less convincing was Puhak’s attempts to attribute some of the injuries of Bathory’s alleged victims to other causes, as not only are the records related to this not meant to be used as patient records, but it seems to be based on a modern understanding of forensics and medical examinations as central to court cases, which was irrelevant to early modern trials based on personal testimony. Puhak also fails to cite any medical texts that prescribe shoving needles into women’s vaginas, severe beatings, or covering a girl in honey and allowing insects to bite her to death, all things that Bathory was alleged to have done by her four accomplices.

Although the poor citation methods make it difficult to know what Puhak refers to when she talks about the testimonies, she mostly seems to cite the most absurd claims possible that legitimately were just hearsay (such as the testimony of Susannah, who is responsible for the claim that Bathory killed 650 people), and not the nearly 100 people who either witnessed the alleged crimes or saw the injuries inflicted. Of course, even justice of the time was not wholly served in Bathory’s case, but her lack of a trial was probably an attempt to prevent a conviction, which would not only forfeit all her valuable property but also damage the family’s reputation. It is notable that Bathory’s own son, writing after his mother, Thurzo, and the king were all dead, claimed that she was guilty. While Puhak identifies motivations for malicious prosecution, none of them actually prove that there was any harmful conspiracy; and while it’s not Puhak’s fault, the complaints about conspiracy theories hit a sour note at a time when a prominent conspiracy theory is being proven. Although the practices of the early modern justice system left much to be desired by modern standards, acknowledgment of this actually loses Bathory her special case, because then all trials of that era can be considered suspicious.

Puhak’s analysis might have been stronger if she had written an essay, since as it stands, most of this book focuses on Hungarian politics in which Bathory was not always directly involved. While obviously some of this is necessary background, the details about Lutheran and Calvinist views on the Lord’s Supper were not. Some of the details she mentions I felt undermined her point, such as an early section where she points out how powerful, wealthy widows were not an uncommon sight. The novelistic, often somewhat purple, writing style was occasionally interrupted by ill-fitting modernisms, such as describing Bathory’s husband as looking like a “contemporary cartoon villain”. I was put on edge at the very beginning, because Puhak’s dramatic reconstruction of Bathory’s arrest, while positioning itself as recounting legend and not fact, made reference to seemingly contemporary rumors of Bathory bathing in blood, when this legend first came about in the eighteenth-century.

There is little doubt that Bathory’s crimes were sensationalized in her lifetime, as Susannah shows, but this does not mean that there was no basis for any of the accusations, and I remain convinced that Bathory was probably a murderer. At one point, Puhak comments on the two-faced nature of one of Bathory’s contemporaries, in that he was capable of generosity one moment but cruelty the next, but does not apply this to the Countess herself. Readers unfamiliar with Bathory will come away knowing a bit more about her, but they could get that information from Wikipedia just as easily. I can’t wait to see Puhak’s take on La Quintrala.