The premise of this book, 19th-century lesbian vampires, drew me in. It delivers on that front with a cast of unique and delightful queer characters. The writing was gorgeous and poetic though certain words (*cough* tuppence) were overused.

However, there is a severe lack of plot or any action on the part of the main character, Poppy. The first third of the book follows the year after Poppy is turned into a vampire where she must remain cloistered away from any humans. This section of the book is mostly dialogue between Poppy and Roisin while nothing else happens. The middle third of the book follows

Poppy who is now living with the Brood (a found family of fellow queer vampires).

Poppy literally sits around and does essentially nothing while Roisin's activities (she actually has a goal, unlike Poppy) during this time period are backfilled in a single chapter. For two-thirds of the book, there is absolutely nothing driving the plot forward. As a result, everything moves at a snail's pace since there is no sense of urgency, no goal, no plan, no motivation, etc. Many pages could (and should) have been trimmed to improve the pacing.

Further, I'm honestly confused about why Poppy was even the POV character since she is absent or a passive observer for most of the action.

For example, when they are searching for a super-powerful ancient vampire, Count Vlad, Poppy is literally assigned the task of moral support. That is not a joke. Everyone else is actively participating in the search in different ways while Poppy bakes and cooks food.

I also remain baffled as to how I'm expected to like Poppy as a character. She treats other people incredibly poorly whenever she gets upset or angry (which is quite often). She deliberately hurts people, including her love interest Roisin, to get an emotional reaction from them. Everyone who receives this horrid treatment either forgives her (despite receiving no apology from Poppy) or even encourages it "because they can take it." She believes that everything revolves around her, a fact that is pointed out multiple times by different characters but is never addressed by Poppy or the narrative itself. 

Finally, the novel spends so much time bashing you over the head with its themes but also drops them on the flip of a coin.

Poppy refuses to drink human blood for the first half of the book due to her struggles with addiction but when put into a situation that forces her to drink human blood, she recovers with no lasting consequences and this issue is never brought up again.

In conclusion, if you enjoy slow-paced low-plot morally-grey character studies, this book is for you. Otherwise, I can't recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley and Bywater Books for providing me a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.