5 Stars
385 Pages
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Release Date: July 1, 2020
Genre: Fiction (Adult), General Fiction (Adult), Historical Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Trigger warning: drug addiction and sexual assault.
Tillie Pembroke is a young woman living in Manhattan in 1899. Her sister is found dead with two puncture marks on her neck. Her death is ruled death by fall but Tillie does not believe it. This looks like an attack by a vampire. After an accident that caused a broken collarbone, Tillie becomes addicted to laudanum, morphine, and heroin. On the way home from the doctor’s office, she meets Ian, a newsie, selling newspapers. Together they begin investigating Lucy’s death and find she is not the first or last victim.
Tillie is a smart independent thinker. She loves learning and would rather spend time in the library than out shopping with friends. The story has a steady pace, the characters are very developed and is written in the first-person point of view.
