{"id":19681,"date":"2025-03-28T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=19681"},"modified":"2025-03-23T21:22:03","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T01:22:03","slug":"review-bloodstains-gaslight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-bloodstains-gaslight\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Bloodstains by Gaslight by Red Lagoe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bloodstains by Gaslight<\/em> by Red Lagoe<\/strong><\/a>
\nBrigids Gate Press (March 29, 2025)<\/strong>
\nReviewed by Elizabeth Broadbent<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Red Lagoe\u2019s <\/span>Bloodstains by Gaslight<\/span><\/i>\u00a0comes with numerous trigger warnings, including intimate partner violence and sexual assault. I was warned. I assured Lagoe I would not be triggered. I think I said something like, \u201cI\u2019m okay.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Two hundred and some odd pages later, I am decidedly not okay. \u201cEmotionally shell-shocked\u201d comes closest. <\/span>Bloodstains by Gaslight <\/span><\/i>is a propulsive read — I finished it in one sitting — but a hard one. That\u2019s not a weak point; the novel is a devastating and realistic look at the horrors of domestic abuse, told slant, as Lagoe turns the vampire trope into a metaphor for partner violence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While Lagoe eases us into vampirism, the domestic abuse becomes evident immediately. It\u2019s 1997, and Reese, an eighteen-year-old high school senior, wants to break it off with Michael, a nineteen-year-old guy who\u2019s her \u201cbest friend,\u201d but whom she\u2019s afraid of — he\u2019s not only hurt her in the past and later denied it, he\u2019s obsessed with her; he\u2019s isolated her from her friends; and he\u2019s dangerously jealous. He\u2019s also thinking about marriage, which deeply frightens her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But when newly created vampire Trevor nearly kills Michael in a botched suicide-by-car attempt, guilt forces him to turn Reese\u2019s boyfriend into a bloodsucker. Suddenly Michael\u2019s stronger and faster, still determined to keep Reese at all costs, despite the dangers of his bloodlust. While Trevor repeatedly warns that he\u2019s a danger to everyone he loves, Michael refuses to listen. Michael\u2019s vampirism becomes simply one more way he\u2019s feeding off Reese. He\u2019s finally turned. But Michael has been a vampire all along.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As events spiral out of control, drawing in Michael\u2019s overly religious mother and her pastor, Lagoe uses familial relationships to both deepen character and illuminate the roots of violence. She lets us into Michael\u2019s head, and while we may feel a shred of sympathy for him, his warped vision of love comes off as monstrous. Just as we see how Reese\u2019s life leaves her vulnerable, we see how Michael\u2019s past and present both predispose him to violence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And Lagoe is careful to show us that Reese starts from a serious disadvantage. Her suck-it-up-and-deal single mother makes her pay rent; she doesn\u2019t expect to go to college (partially because Michael talked her out of it), though she\u2019s academically gifted. Her father ran out on her mother. Her car\u2019s old. There\u2019s a pervasive sense of poverty, of never-enough, of making do. Life isn\u2019t fair, and Reese was dealt a bum hand.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why harp on this? Certainly, domestic abuse can happen to anyone. However, <\/span>Bloodstains by Gaslight <\/span><\/i>shows a keen understanding of the unique forces at work in a case of intimate partner violence. <\/span>Why didn\u2019t you just leave? <\/span><\/i>people ask. In Reese\u2019s case, there\u2019s no reliable place to go. With a grim constellation of forces arrayed against her, she\u2019s forced to return to the monster again and again — by love, by lack of choice, by pity, by naked fear. The horrors are here, and Lagoe won\u2019t let us look away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While Lagoe illuminates the unique machinations of partner abuse to grim effect, she also understands the importance of making tropes your own. Not only does she use vampirism as more than a plot point, she avoids scooping familiar vampire myth. Lagoe invents her own spin on vampire lore — without unnecessary explanation — and it works well.<\/span><\/p>\n

And despite its vampires, this novel drips with gritty realism. You\u2019ll practically smell 1997\u2019s Sun-Ripened Raspberry, and there\u2019s also a grim knowingness to the pervasive poverty of the main characters, from Reese\u2019s grease-scented uniform to the single-wide\u2019s weight room to the dog who lives on a chain. Without cell phones, without regular internet access, Lagoe adds an extra edge of desperation and claustrophobia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Good horror has something to say. <\/span>Bloodstains by Gaslight <\/span><\/i>is shouting about the real-life horrors of domestic violence, and vampirism provides Lagoe with the perfect metaphor. How many times have vampires seemed like creepers (Edward Cullen, anyone?!). Lagoe dares to speak into the silence, and her story\u2019s gutting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We need it more than ever. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bloodstains by Gaslight by Red Lagoe Brigids Gate Press (March 29, 2025) Reviewed by Elizabeth Broadbent Red Lagoe\u2019s Bloodstains by Gaslight\u00a0comes with numerous trigger warnings, including intimate partner violence and sexual assault. I was warned. I assured Lagoe I would not be triggered. I think I said something like, \u201cI\u2019m okay.\u201d Two hundred and some … Continue Reading! “Review: Bloodstains by Gaslight by Red Lagoe”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[80],"tags":[3376,3165,3053,79],"class_list":["post-19681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-bloodstains-by-gaslight","tag-elizabeth-broadbent","tag-red-lagoe","tag-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\nReview: Bloodstains by Gaslight by Red Lagoe - 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