Blood and Roses
Review by The Mad Bibliographer, submitted on 28-Oct-2001

Adapted from "Vampires in Print" in _The Vampire's Crypt_ #9 (Spring 1994).

Review by Cathy Krusberg
Internet: ckberg_AT_uga.cc.uga.edu
BITNET ckberg_AT_uga

_Blood and Roses_ by Sharon Bainbridge (Diamond, 1994; $4.99/$5.99).

There it sits, another cheap paperback among the romances, the gothics, or the general fiction (depending on the bookstore's whim of the day): the dark-haired lady with the rose in her teeth, surrounded by an assortment of misleading gothic/horror cover blurbs: "Dracula was not the only vampire who stalked England at night;" "Now the story can be told..."

And told it is--but as a comic parody in the tradition of Jane Austen's _Northanger Abbey_ or Florence Stevenson's _Curse of the Concullens_. In High Grimmire, a quiet rural community of 1867 England, Sir Geoffrey Utley has recently moved into his ancestral home of Fairbourne. Notwithstanding that the Baronet is "the most important member of the oldest family in the county," he has not joined in the social rituals appropriate to one of his station; claiming illness, he has paid absolutely no calls upon anyone, to the horror of every mother of a young lady of marriageable age. Lavinia Portland strikes a social coup by finally luring the reclusive invalid to the Autumn Ball that she holds at her home. What a triumph it will be if Sir Geoffrey takes her daughter Guenevere to wife! But alas, the Autumn Ball is marred by tragedy: Clarissa Leigh, who is with Guenevere considered one of the most eligible young ladies in the district, is murdered and dies of a loss of blood. Her death is reminiscent of the wasting illness that afflicts a number of less noteworthy local young women.

William Praisegood, a London doctor, hears of events at High Grimmire and comes in person to make inquiries. Aided by Elaine, Guenevere's older sister (whose practical nature has made her her mother's despair) and Violet Webb, Elaine's similarly pragmatic cousin, Praisegood uncovers the truth and reveals it to a trusted few: A vampire lord is active in High Grimmire, and he must be stopped before more women fall ill and die.

The meat of _Blood and Roses_, however, is not in *what* it tells but *how* it tells it. Bainbridge has written a delightful comedy of manners. The ground is scarcely untrodden: social climbers have been the topic of many authors' uncharitable (if well-deserved) mockery, nor is Bainbridge the first to help audiences titter at the restrictions of Victorian propriety. As Elaine Portland observes, "There is so little that is proper for a lady." Yet in this setting of one sort of iconoclasm, Bainbridge has introduced another (though not so iconoclastic as it once was): the idea that not all vampires are evil; that they are, in fact, merely a different sort of being: as with humans, some are evil, some are good. So Praisegood assures us; so Bainbridge demonstrates, in a rousing finale that includes the seeming unmasking and exoneration of one vampire lord after another until the incredible truth is at last revealed and, of course, all the right parties become affianced to one another.

For those of who find that the name Praisegood rings a bell: He has previously appeared in "A Surfeit of Melancholic Humours" by Sharon N. Farber (_Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine_, March 1984). No, there's no character-stealing here; a peek at _Blood and Roses_' title page verso reveals that Farber is one of the copyright holders. I am delighted at the reappearance of a character in itself, but I must say that Dr. Praisegood, for all his charms, is the least of _Blood and Roses_' attractions. Its cultivated understatement evokes the Victorian atmosphere; between subtle but lively style and rapidly advancing plot, it holds the reader's attention admirably. Mocking pretention while taking all the right things seriously, _Blood and Roses_ beautifully balances keeping a straight face and encouraging its audience to titter.

THIS IS A GREAT BOOK! THE MAD BIBLIOGRAPHER SAYS, READ IT!