Quiver
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4.3 • 6 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In 16th-century Hungary, Countess Elizabeth Bathory tortured and killed more than 600 servant girls in order to bathe in their blood. She believed this practice would keep her beauty immortal.
Quiver captures the chilling legacy of the notorious Countess Bathory through the modern-day story of Danica, a young forensic psychologist. Danica works at Stowmoor, a former insane asylum turned forensic hospital, where one of her patients, Martin Foster, is imprisoned for murdering a fourteen-year-old girl. Danica suspects that Foster may have belonged to a gothic cabal idolizing Bathory and reenacting her savage murders.
When Maria, a seductive archivist with whom Danica has had a complicated past, contacts her to claim she has found Bathory’s long-lost diaries, Danica is drawn into Maria’s glamorous orbit. Soon Danica is in too deep to notice that Maria’s motivations are far from selfless, and that they may just cost Danica her life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The malignant spirit of 16th-century sociopath Countess Elizabeth B thory hovers over events in Canadian author Luhning's suspenseful first novel, a modern tale of obsession and seduction. Since her youth, forensic psychiatrist Danica Winston has been fascinated by the Hungarian countess and her legendary slaughters of servant girls so she could bathe in their blood. Working in London with a patient who's just killed a teenage girl in the manner of B thory, Danica makes the acquaintance of Maria J nos, an enigmatic archivist who claims to have found B thory's long-lost diaries. Drawn into Maria's glamorous life, Danica succumbs to her new friend's Svengalian manipulations in a way that increasingly parallels the hold B thory exerts on accomplices in the grisly diary entries Maria tantalizes Danica with. Despite the over-the-top climax, the care with which Luhning (Sway, a poetry collection) orchestrates the tale's events makes Danica's discovery of the dark side of herself and others both believable and chilling.
Customer Reviews
Quiver
This book was assigned to my English 232 Gothic narrative class at the University of Saskatchewan. I have enjoyed the novel, not only as a class reading but would and will read this book again. The fascinating quick paced novel engulfs the reader and latches on until the very last page, leaving the reader craving more. A sequel should be written!!!