A Multitude of Dreams is an interesting Gothic retelling of Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death". Mara Rutherford takes the red death plague and turns it into a plague with 3 outcomes; death, immunity, or rebirth as a vampire.
Seraphina, is taken at a young age and made to take the place of the recently deceased Princess Imogen. She is then rushed away to the castle only to be locked up with the King, the other princesses, nobility, and the servants, in order to hide from the plague. Seraphina is forced to pretend until things start looking dire as supplies dwindle and the monsters are at their doors.
Nico was the son of a butcher who desired to be a physician. When the plague struck he was the only one in his family left alive--he had immunity. He managed to meet Lord Crane who nursed him back to health and offered Nico a job serving him, but Lord Crane isn't as heroic as Nico thought.
I enjoyed the way the author included imagery from Poe's story such as the confined nobility, the rooms of different colors, and that strange black clock. The addition of vampires was an interesting twist and worked well with the bloody plague and played on the dark character that entered the castle in Poe's tale.
I enjoyed the story overall, but the romance aspect felt a bit forced in the end and probably could have been more alluded to than rushed onto the page to wrap up the ending.
Seraphina, is taken at a young age and made to take the place of the recently deceased Princess Imogen. She is then rushed away to the castle only to be locked up with the King, the other princesses, nobility, and the servants, in order to hide from the plague. Seraphina is forced to pretend until things start looking dire as supplies dwindle and the monsters are at their doors.
Nico was the son of a butcher who desired to be a physician. When the plague struck he was the only one in his family left alive--he had immunity. He managed to meet Lord Crane who nursed him back to health and offered Nico a job serving him, but Lord Crane isn't as heroic as Nico thought.
I enjoyed the way the author included imagery from Poe's story such as the confined nobility, the rooms of different colors, and that strange black clock. The addition of vampires was an interesting twist and worked well with the bloody plague and played on the dark character that entered the castle in Poe's tale.
I enjoyed the story overall, but the romance aspect felt a bit forced in the end and probably could have been more alluded to than rushed onto the page to wrap up the ending.