House of Hunger
I was a fan of Alexis Henderson’s debut, The Year of the Witching, so I have been pumped to dive into another of her creepy narratives. House of Hunger takes a vampiric approach and has a sapphic storyline like one of my favorite vampiric fiction works: Carmilla.
In this setting, old northern families drink blood from live victims/volunteers who live in relative luxury in their manors. There is a stigma against becoming one of these “bloodmaids” in a way that is an analog to sex work. The matriarch of the eponymous House of Hunger is the aptly named Lisavet Báthory — if you know, you know. While there might be a revisitation of the history of the real Báthory, House of Hunger’s version lives up to the gruesome myths.
Even before the main character, Marion considers indenturing herself as a bloodmaid, she is suffering some hefty abuse at the hands of her brother. Even through the stigma, she sees indenture as an escape from her grim situation. This book starts out pretty bad and only gets sadder. At her arrival in the House of Hunger, it is intimidating but seemingly not so bad as she befriends her fellow bloodmaids, even as they jockey for favor in the strictly structured hierarchy.
Marion becomes immersed in the fishbowl at court and fails to notice some red flags afoot in the castle. By the time she notices, it could be too late. Alexis Henderson’s atmospheric writing is what elevates this book from a sapphic historical fictionalization to a prized addition to the vampiric literature canon (in my opinion, at least!). I am a fan of literary horror, but I need to have a good atmosphere to truly enjoy it and Henderson always delivers.
The other characters in the narrative are well fleshed out and do not just feel like decoration in Marion’s story. The other maids work well as a supporting block or even Greek chorus-esque, but they have enough individuality to stand on their own. We do not get to see them individually, but they are compelling as a multi-faceted pack.
Lisavet is a compelling foil to Marion in terms of life experience and personality. It is easy to understand how Marion adapts to her cultish household, despite the glaring red flags, but Lisavet presents herself as just vulnerable and relatable enough to soothe Marion and the other bloodmaids to go along their grisly purpose. Lisavet is a smarter and more controlled abuser so at first, Marion believes she has been able to break her cycle, but she has just been blinded by love bombing. This feels true to real-life instances of abusive homes leading to abusive relationships in adulthood where vampirism is metaphorical rather than literal.
House of Hunger fits well into the tropes of the “sexy vampire.” It reminds me very much of Carmilla, though the sapphic relationship there is very much implied. The University of Bristol has some educational TikToks available on the subject of sexy vampires and the professor explaining the phenomenon looks just as stereotypically “literature academic” as you might imagine. 10/10 no notes.
