‘Come to me, and be mine for eternity’
Historical fiction author Charlotte Cross launches her debut novel, The Brides, in the US tomorrow (7 July). Having harboured a lifelong fascination with history, Cross grounds her new narrative in the framework of Bram Stoker’s Dracula—reintroducing familiar figures like Jonathan Harker, Lord Godalming, and Abraham Van Helsing, but entirely reframing the perspective.
Written in an epistolary format—and ideal for fans of Kat Dunn’s Bitterthorn and Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian—The Brides is a sapphic horror love story set in 1884. The plot follows Mafalda as she journeys to Budapest to care for her grieving aunt, swiftly followed by her secret love, Lucy, who travels from London with a chaperone and lady’s maid in tow. However, the maid, Alice, is plagued by terrifying visions brought on by “the Sight.”
When their chaperone falls ill, the women head into Transylvania in search of healing waters, ultimately accepting a nobleman’s invitation to Castle Dracula—where their host’s dark ambitions threaten to tear them apart.
In celebration of the book’s US launch, CinemaChords caught up with Cross to uncover the “delightfully monstrous” blueprints behind this gothic subversion, tracing her journey to find an authentic voice inside a century-old literary shadow and exploring why horror remains our most honest mirror for dissecting the human condition.