I wanted A Dowry of Blood to be so much more. I know it was supposed to be a letter to Constanta's vampire overlord and he (dead again) wouldn't have to know details, but the reader could use a few. Things were exquisite but no details of what made the dress or house or town exquisite. Sometimes it was hard to tell if it was 1400 or 1920 because of lack of detail. Or the details didn't fit the era. One male character had a waistcoat and lace-up pants in the 1920s. Were they still wearing 100-year-old clothes? Zippers were invented by then.
One time, I think it was supposed to be the 1500's, he told Constanta to stop being paranoid. It seemed to me that the word paranoid wouldn't have been in use 500 years ago. Did you ever see the word paranoid in Shakespeare's plays? No? There is a reason.
Paranoia was first coined to mean a suspicion and distrust of people without justification in the year 1848. The word paranoid was not used until the year 1901.
Another time, also during the Renaissance (I think, sometimes the centuries bled together) Constanta said her vampire overlord (can't remember if he had a name) "repurposed" a barn into his study. Um, I'm pretty sure nobody used the word "repurposed" 500 years ago.
Maybe the vampires saw into the future and borrowed words from hundreds of years to come.
There was a lot of blood in A Dowry of Blood, but I didn't feel like there was a lot of heart in it.
Nice cover, though.
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