Published By: Del Rey
Pages: 400
Released On: 10/03/2026
Anneke has a complicated relationship with her father, Abraham Van Helsing – doctor, scientist, and madman devoted to studying vampires – up until the night she comes home to find him murdered, with a surreally beautiful woman looming over his body.
It soon becomes clear that her father isn’t the only inexplicably dead body. So, obsessed with vengeance, and armed with the latest in forensic and investigatory techniques, Anneke puts together a team of detectives to catch her mysterious serial killer.
But, for reasons even she can’t explain, Anneke keeps some crucial evidence to herself: infuriatingly coy letters, addressed only to her, occasionally soaked in blood, and always signed Diavola. Devil. The obsession is mutual, and all the more dangerous for it.
And the closer Anneke gets to her devil, the less sense the world makes. Could her father have been right all along? Could Diavola be something even more deadly than a serial killer? Because as Anneke unearths more of Diavola’s tragic past, she suspects there’s still a heart somewhere in that undead body.
A heart that beats for Anneke alone.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey for the advance copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I love all of Kiersten’s books that I’ve read so far, so I had high hopes for this, but it just wasn’t for me.
The cover is beautiful and eye-catching.
It’s got a wonderful opening; it’s tense, fun, and scary. It promises such delights to come. There’s magic and thill and fantasy and desire. But it quite quickly loses its way.
I love reading books about women who are strong and powerful in a time where they should be subservient, which is exactly what Anneke is. However, you don’t really get to know her, or the other characters, that deeply because they’re very 2D and I couldn’t find myself caring all that much.
Sapphic, romance, historical, fantasy, thriller – it’s got a bit of everything, but nothing is really nailed. It’s a bit too light on everything and I’d rather she committed to one or two things. I also felt the whole vampiric element was weak and not needed.
This still has some excitement, but it is completely different to her previous books I’ve read because they’ve all been contemporary. This is et in the late 1800s and early 1900s, so it’s an historical story as well as a fantasy/thriller. If you’d given it to me without telling me who wrote it, I would never have linked it to Kiersten.
Whilst mainly written in normal prose, there are bits written through a series of letters, which was an interesting change in narrative style. I didn’t particularly get on with it and didn’t find myself getting much from it.
If you haven’t read her books before and come to this anew, then I think you might like it far more than I did, because you won’t be expecting anything.
It dragged majorly in the middle. It kept going round and round in circles, this never-ending loop of murder mysteries that never seemed to get anywhere, and it meant it was slow and I felt my attention waning.
I thought it was an interesting storyline with good world building, but it wasn’t a Kiersten White book for me. It lacked her star quality which meant it didn’t grab me and hold my attention and I don’t think it’ll be as memorable as her others.
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