Hungerstone by Kat Dunn

sapphic romance • gothic horror • vampire romance • queer awakening • historical fantasy

What do you hunger for when the life you've built no longer feels like your own? In the heart of the Industrial Revolution, Lenore's stagnant marriage and carefully controlled existence are upended when a mysterious woman named Carmilla arrives at her remote country estate. As desire awakens and local girls begin to fall mysteriously ill, Lenore finds herself drawn toward a darkness that threatens to consume everything she thought she knew.

Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ 3/5

The Vibe

Lenore has spent ten years as the wife of wealthy steel magnate Henry, living within the suffocating expectations of Victorian society while her marriage steadily deteriorates. Intelligent, restless, and increasingly unwilling to accept the role she has been given, she finds herself confronting desires and instincts she can no longer suppress.

Carmilla is mysterious, alluring, and utterly unlike anyone Lenore has encountered before. Her arrival awakens something powerful in Lenore, drawing the two women into an increasingly dangerous connection as strange illnesses spread through the surrounding villages and the secrets of Lenore's household begin to surface.

A lush and atmospheric reimagining of Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, Hungerstone blends sapphic romance, Gothic horror, vampire mythology, and historical fiction into a dark exploration of desire, repression, feminine rage, and autonomy. Set against the wild moors and the violence of the Industrial Revolution, it is sensual, unsettling, and deliciously Gothic.

Tropes & Tags

• Sapphic romance
• Queer awakening
• Vampire romance
• Gothic horror
• Historical romance
• Victorian setting
• Carmilla retelling
• Dark romance
• Forbidden desire
• Repressed heroine
• Mysterious love interest
• Feminine rage
• Supernatural suspense
• Standalone