Château Valmont and An Inheritance of Thirst
by Briar Somerset
Blurb:
After a storm-ravaged voyage aboard the Hesper and a sleepless train ride into Paris, Jacques brings Annie and her grandmother to safety. He’s determined to prove his intentions remain honorable, even as his first days as a new vampire threaten to make a liar of him. But the hôtel particulier of his youth hides nothing: not the stain of opulence upon its walls, nor the hunger coiling beneath his skin.
As Annie makes the acquaintance of the ghosts of Jacques’s past, the Theatre across the street stirs quietly to life. When Amah’s curiosity draws them into its velvet-draped corridors, they discover Jacques isn’t the only one keeping secrets—and that the evil they’d left in London has no intention of staying behind. With the Comtesse’s autumn assembly fast approaching and esteemed expectations tightening around them, they embark for the secluded forest estate, where Jacques realizes he can no longer outrun the curse woven into his blood, or the burgeoning feelings for his quick-witted captive.
Navigating halls lined with watching portraits and the quivering quill of a notary who seems to record more than inheritance, Annie must decide where her trust belongs—and whether she dares claim a future that threatens to unmake everything she’s ever known.
My Review:
Gothic, macabre, atmospheric and absolutely
unputdownable. Briar Somerset has done it again and I am not okay.
This is book two in the My Darling Malady
series and it picks up immediately after the events of Beecham's Infirmary,
whisking Jacques, Annie, and the incomparable Amah out of Victorian London and
straight into France. If you have not read the novella yet, stop everything and
go read it first. You have no excuse.
Jacques is now a reluctant vampire, and his
internal struggle with what he is becoming feels genuinely compelling rather
than just a convenient excuse to make the MMC brooding and attractive. Though
it absolutely succeeds there too. Watching him wrestle with his heritage, his
grief, and his completely spectacular obsession with Annie is a privilege. This
man is so hopelessly down bad it should be studied.
Annie is sharp, independent, and takes
absolutely no nonsense from anyone, including a lovesick vampire aristocrat.
Their relationship starts from a complicated place because yes, he maybe sort
of definitely kidnapped her in book one, and the story does not brush past
that. Trust is rebuilt slowly and earned completely, making their romance feel
wonderfully real.
And Amah. Stealing teacups, frequenting
questionable establishments, casually handling firearms. An absolute icon who I
would adopt as my grandmother without a single hesitation.
The spice was a fantastic addition. Annie
still has her dressmaking shears. That is all I will say.
Read the novella. Then read this. Then
suffer alongside the rest of us waiting for book three.
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