The premise of this is fantastic: Queen Victoria takes Vlad Tepes as her Prince Consort, making vampirism fashionable—while Jack the Ripper stalks vampire women by night. But the book itself was disappointing. Newman got caught up in name-dropping literary & historical characters almost as a substitute for good world-building. The narrative was a bit of a slog, and though things pick up toward the end, it was too little too late for me.