House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson

Welcome Back, Booklovers! Fall officially starts this week and I know you're ready for all the spooky season books. I loved The Year of the Witching. It was dark, atmospheric and it kept me enthralled. So of course I was hyped for a sequel. But when Alexis Henderson said she would be doing another standalone instead I was intrigued. With promises of more darkness and blood I was ready! I received an arc from Ace in exchange for review.

House of Hunger opens up in a setting that can be described as a dystopian mix of Victorian London and the US South. Marion is working as a maid for barely enough coin to survive when she comes across an ad in the local newspaper asking for young women to be bloodmaidens. Seeing it as an opportunity for a better life with promises of a big pension, she applies and is whisked away to the North where she's not quite sure what awaits her. Soon Marion finds herself striving for the affections of the mysterious Countess Lisavet and is struggling with how much she's willing to bleed for her.

One thing this book gets right is the descriptions of gore. So many times I found myself squirming while reading descriptions of blood spilling and needles piercing skin. And it was the way she wrote those scenes that kept me reading even as the plot was unclear.

Marion just comes across as too smart to get so easily sucked into this world. She's not a naïve young girl. She grew up in the streets taking care of herself and has dealt with women who fed her lies in the past for a good time. So to see her instantly falling for Lisavet's affection and positioning herself to favorite shortly after entering the house didn't track. Outside of job security there's no real reason to be vying for the position of first bloodmaid. Lisavet is blatant with her favoritism pitting the girls against each other as soon as they enter the house. It's not as if she presents herself as one way in front of them and behind closed doors tells them each what they want to hear.  At the same time strange things happen at the house but no one really questions it until the end. And at the end she makes some questionable decisions that make no sense knowing what we know about her. 

There's so much build up to Marion's arrival at the manor and very detailed description about the midnight train and the foods she ate on it. I wanted more of that detail once we reached the manor. The Year of the Witching did such a great job establishing atmosphere. Here I never got a full picture of the house.  I still was unsure how the house structure had an effect on the rest of the North. While there is a hedonistic court present in the manor there's really no court intrigue as we see so little of this court outside of the first night. And there's also a distinction made with race with people of the South being implied to be darker skinned while people of the North were described as pale. But ultimately race had little factor on this world and I didn't see the need for Lisavet to be white. 

There was also just a lack of chemistry between the girls both in friends and lovers situations. The ending relied heavily on them coming together for this own good but Marion immediately made enemies with them by being ambitious. The Sapphic obsession promised didn't live up to expectations. Lisavet and Marion's didn't have the chemistry to sell this dark romance. Their sex scenes felt mechanical and dry. Lisavet readily discards Marion whenever she says or does something not to her liking. 

There were good ideas in this story but ultimately they needed to be developed more. More character development, more development with the world, more even pacing so the ending didn't feel so rushed. After such a strong debut I was expecting more than the simplistic ending and straightforward plot here.