WIN a copy of To The Sea by Australian author Chri.

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2016 Incomplete.

Review: Mount Buggery to Nowhere Else - The Storie.

Review: The Countess - A Novel of Elizabeth Bathor.

Winner of To The Sea by Christine Dibley announced.

Bless This Mother-Effing Home: Sweet Stitches for.

Review: The Girl Before - A Novel by JP Delaney.

Review: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

I enjoyed this account of Bathory's life in The Countess, but I finished reading it with a feeling her crimes had been blown out of all proportion, and she wasn't the devil incarnate. (Don't believe me? Check it out on Wikipedia). Many of these myths and accounts of Bathory occurred long after her death and it's difficult to address in a fictionalised account of an historical figure, but perhaps this could have been accomplished by a Author's Note at the end.Ĭountess Elizabeth Bathory's life and crimes have inspired countless artists to reference her in novels, comics, stage plays, operas, songs, TV shows, movies, and even video games. What The Countess doesn't do (and cannot do) is respond to, answer or address the accusations Bathory ever bathed in blood. Bathory beats them and many of them die, and we get a unique insight during all of this with privileged access to her - albeit fictionalised - thoughts.

Her first novel, Icebergs, was a finalist. Johns paints a clear picture of the responsibilities of a Countess to run several households and the disappointment and betrayal Bathory feels when her maidservants steal from her or sleep with her husband. REBECCA JOHNS is an associate professor of English at DePaul University and a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop.

We see her mature from a young girl and face fear, self-doubt, loneliness, love, heartbreak, loss, grief, anger and frustration. Johns takes us through Bathory's childhood growing up in a noble family in 16th Century Hungary, and walks us through her life in a first person narrative. Author Rebecca Johns attempts to address this in her fictionalised account of Elizabeth Bathory's life in her historical novel The Countess.

The countess by rebecca johns