Reluctant Immortals

By: Gwendolyn Kiste

Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan

2023 Lambda Literary Award Winner
2023 Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a Novel

For fans of Mexican Gothic, from three-time Bram Stoker Award–winning author Gwendolyn Kiste comes a novel inspired by the untold stories of forgotten women in classic literature—from Lucy Westnera, a victim of Stoker’s Dracula, and Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester’s attic-bound wife in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre—as they band together to combat the toxic men bent on destroying their lives, set against the backdrop of the Summer of Love, Haight-Ashbury, 1967.

Reluctant Immortals is a historical horror novel that looks at two men of classic literature, Dracula and Mr. Rochester, and the two women who survived them, Bertha and Lucy, who are now undead immortals residing in Los Angeles in 1967 when Dracula and Rochester make a shocking return in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.

Combining elements of historical and gothic fiction with a modern perspective, in a tale of love and betrayal and coercion, Reluctant Immortals is the lyrical and harrowing journey of two women from classic literature as they bravely claim their own destiny in a man’s world.

The patriarchy is hard to kill...

The rot of a bad relationship can follow you for a long time. It's a thrill to see how these two protagonists must overcome their supernaturally evil exes.

Very Immersive & Empowering

I adored this book! I was so enthralled I listened to the entire thing in one sitting. I loved the empowerment and autonomy bestowed upon the female leads. It spoke to past trauma I had endured, similar to our heroines. If you are interested but unsure, please do yourself a favor and read this gem!

I really wanted to like this, but..,

The premise was promising, but then everything fell apart. The narrator’s voice was all wrong for the characters (famous cast-aside women from British Victorian fiction and the narrator sounds like an angsty teenage YA character) The characters themselves seem without personality or agency. It’s very unclear how they came to be where there are at the start of the story, and even less so as the tale continues, since neither seems to have any ingenuity or, frankly, common sense. I found myself bored and annoyed with it, and finally stopped about 1/3 through. It just didn’t make sense to continue spending my time on something I wasn’t enjoying at all.

So disappointed

The whole premise of this story was promising, but it completely fails in execution. So much scurrying and running with no real story-a completely jumbled and confusing mess. Totally disappointed and completely sorry I purchased this. Not to mention the reader was awful. She sounds on the verge of tears with every word. I was so bored by the storyline and the reader that my mind wandered and I had to keep rewinding. Honestly a waste of my time.