This review is for the third book in the series. Read the review for book one here, and book two here.
Genre: science fiction (alternate history / lesbians but also dinosaurs)
Pairings: f/f
Queer Representation: cis lesbian, cis pansexual
Warnings: none
Review
Half-vampire Lucy IS BACK on another adventure with her vampire lover/girlfriend/it’s complicated. In this installment her human mother (a vampire hunter, once raped by Dracula, who is Lucy’s father) has gone missing and British intelligence has tapped Lucy, with her otherworldly powers, to bring her home. (Lucy is also related to Attila the Hun, for reference).
The Great War has a new front, however…THE CENTER OF THE EARTH! Complete with dinosaurs, mole people, and basically every piece of camp you could ever imagine (except the Martian heat rays. Those were on the Titanic in book one. Also Tarzan.). Lucy must journey inside the earth to rescue her mother from the eeeeevil Dr. Krüger and some feisty tyrannosauruses.
But her journey is not without passion! Though girlfriend/vampire Carmilla cannot accompany Lucy because Victorian Sexual Mores and Lesbians Are Evil, Lucy gets help from a very hot proto-human/mole person (it’s not quite clear) who ends up sneaking a kiss while forcing Lucy to confront her own internal homophobia.
You can’t keep a good vampire down, however, and Carmilla pops up just after the kiss, having witnessed everything and, very amused, continues to prod Lucy on her emotional journey. Then the plot shows back up, everyone gets kidnapped by the eeeeevil Dr. Krüger, there are some machine men, Lucy’s mother finds out vampires aren’t evil (which basically destroys her since she had to kill her bestie after a vampire turned her) and Lucy completes her moral journey.
Like every installment of the Lucy Harper chronicles, this book was an absolute blast. The camp is just so well done. The subtle references to Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, etc., are perfect. This is pulp science fiction the way it was meant to be. I want a dozen more of these at least, and Lucy and Carmilla better have some awesome vampire babies STAT that get to ride dinosaurs around downtown London.
And as always, the book has excellent quotable lines. My favorite:
Standing close to attractive people in a state of undress has a predictable effect on my libido.
You can visit the center of the earth on the back of any number of dinosaurs by buying the book here.