Download or read book Blood Countess written by Lana Popovic and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A lush and bloody historical thriller” based on the infamous real-life inspiration for Countess Dracula, a Hungarian noblewoman turned serial killer.(Kirkus Reviews) In sixteenth-century Hungary, Anna Darvulia has just begun working as a scullery maid for the young and glamorous Countess Elizabeth Báthory. When Elizabeth takes a liking to Anna, she’s vaulted to the dream role of chambermaid, a far cry from the filthy servants’ quarters below. She receives wages generous enough to provide for her family, and the Countess begins to groom Anna as her friend, confident and lover. It’s not long before Anna falls completely under the Countess’s spell—and the Countess t”akes full advantage. Isolated from her former friends, family, and fiancé, Anna realizes she’s not a friend but a prisoner of the increasingly cruel Elizabeth. Then come the murders, and Anna knows it’s only a matter of time before the Blood Countess turns on her, too. “Popovic balances lush, romantic language with gruesome imagery in this tale of innocence lost. Readers will likely be inspired to do actual research into Lady Bathory’s murderous misdeeds.” —Booklist “Popovic also touches on how a patriarchal society can drive women to extremes without letting the truly terrifying Bathory, or Anna, off the hook for their own actions.” —Kirkus Reviews “Hand to fans of dark historical fiction and powerful female characters.” —School Library Journal
Download or read book The Blood Countess written by Andrei Codrescu and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “brilliant” novel of Elizabeth Bathory, the notorious sixteenth-century Hungarian aristocrat who bathed in the blood of virgins (St. Petersburg Times). Turmoil reigns in post-Soviet Hungary when journalist Drake Bathory-Kereshtur returns from America to grapple with his family history. He’s haunted by the legacy of his ancestor, the notorious sixteenth-century Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who is said to have murdered more than 650 young virgins and bathed in their blood to preserve her youth. Interweaving past and present, The Blood Countess tells the stories of Elizabeth’s debauched and murderous reign and Drake’s fascination with the eternal clashes of faith and power, violence and beauty. Codrescu traces the captivating origins of the countess’s obsessions in tandem with the emerging political fervor of the reporter, building the narratives into an unforgettable, bloody crescendo. Taut and intense, The Blood Countess is a riveting novel that deftly straddles the genres of historical fiction, thriller, horror, and family drama.
Download or read book Dracula was a Woman written by Raymond T. McNally and published by McGraw-Hill Companies. This book was released on 1983 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Bloody Countess written by Valentine Penrose and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2013-10-12 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Descended from one of the most ancient aristocratic families of Europe, Erzsebet Bathory bore the psychotic aberrations of centuries of intermarriage. From adolescence she indulged in sadistic lesbian fantasies, where only the spilling of a woman’s blood could satisfy her urges. By middle age, she had regressed to a mirror-fixated state of pathological necro-sadism involving witchcraft, torture, blood-drinking, cannibalism and wholesale slaughter. These years, at the latter end of the 16th century, witnessed a reign of cruelty unsurpassed in the annals of mass murder, with the Countess’ depredations on the virgin girls of the Carpathians leading to some 650 deaths. Her many castles were equipped with chambers where she would hideously torture and mutilate her victims; hundreds of girls were killed and processed for the ultimate, youth-giving ritual: the bath of blood. The Bloody Countess is Valentine Penrose’s true, disturbing case history of a female psychopath, a chillingly lyrical account beautifully translated by Alexander Trocchi (author of Cain’s Book), which has an unequalled power to evoke the decadent melancholy of doomed, delinquent aristocracy in a dark age of superstition.
Download or read book Rejected Princesses written by Jason Porath and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blending the iconoclastic feminism of The Notorious RBG and the confident irreverence of Go the F**ck to Sleep, a brazen and empowering illustrated collection that celebrates inspirational badass women throughout history, based on the popular Tumblr blog. Well-behaved women seldom make history. Good thing these women are far from well behaved . . . Illustrated in a contemporary animation style, Rejected Princesses turns the ubiquitous "pretty pink princess" stereotype portrayed in movies, and on endless toys, books, and tutus on its head, paying homage instead to an awesome collection of strong, fierce, and yes, sometimes weird, women: warrior queens, soldiers, villains, spies, revolutionaries, and more who refused to behave and meekly accept their place. An entertaining mix of biography, imagery, and humor written in a fresh, young, and riotous voice, this thoroughly researched exploration salutes these awesome women drawn from both historical and fantastical realms, including real life, literature, mythology, and folklore. Each profile features an eye-catching image of both heroic and villainous women in command from across history and around the world, from a princess-cum-pirate in fifth century Denmark, to a rebel preacher in 1630s Boston, to a bloodthirsty Hungarian countess, and a former prostitute who commanded a fleet of more than 70,000 men on China’s seas.
Download or read book Countess Dracula written by Tony Thorne and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 1998-02-19 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of Elisabeth Bathory, a 17th-century Transylvanian countess. She was tried as a vampire and became an inspiration for depraved murderers up to the present day.;Based on research conducted at archives in Eastern Europe, this account includes both the recorded truth and the legend that has grown up around her. Tony Thorne is the author of the "Bloomsbury Dictionary of Slang".
Download or read book Elizabeth B thory written by Jill Keppeler and published by Gareth Stevens Publishing LLLP. This book was released on 2016-07-15 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixteenth-century Hungarian noblewoman Elizabeth Báthory became known as the Blood Countess after being accused of torturing and killing numerous young women. She was never convicted of these crimes, but accounts of her life became intertwined with bloody folklore. Some say she bathed in her victims blood to stay young! This gripping biography relates the fascinating facts and the gruesome and grisly tales that hound this womans legacy. Sidebars, fact boxes, and photographs and illustrations provide more information about Báthory as well as the time in which she lived.
Download or read book The Blood Countess written by Annouchka Bayley and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2023-11-14 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two women separated by five hundred years, each with a secret - the infamous ‘Blood Countess’(1560-1614), notorious for bathing in the blood of six-hundred-and-fifty women in Renaissance Hungary and Transylvania; and the woman driven to re-write her story in the present - an academic who lives in and out of time because of a near death experience and who escapes ruin at the hands of rival scholars desperate to see her and her world destroyed at any cost. But Bathory’s story will be told! Not as a murderer or a dark witch, as history would have us believe today, but as a woman who became a subversive printer and smuggler of banned books, rocked the religious foundations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with only a band of faithful refugee women to help her, and who’s revolutionary ideas would challenge even the Emperor himself! Bathory’s modern day chronicler becomes the cipher of this secret history, uncovering the real life of the Blood Countess. What she doesn’t know is that the Blood Countess is rewriting her across time… Based on 100s of hours of original historical research, this novel is a transformational account of not only of the infamous story of the so-called Blood Countess, but a searing exploration of what history is and what history does to women.
Download or read book The Countess written by Rebecca Johns and published by Crown. This book was released on 2011-09-27 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was the “Blood Countess” history’s first and perhaps worst female serial killer? Or did her accusers create a violent fiction in order to remove this beautiful, intelligent, ambitious foe from the male-dominated world of Hungarian politics? In 1611, Countess Erzsébet Báthory, a powerful Hungarian noblewoman, stood helpless as masons walled her inside her castle tower, dooming her to spend her final years in solitary confinement. Her crime: the gruesome murders of dozens of female servants, mostly young girls tortured to death for displeasing their ruthless mistress. Her opponents painted her as a bloodthirsty škrata—a witch—a portrayal that would expand to grotesque proportions through the centuries. In this riveting dramatization of Erzsébet Báthory’s life, the countess tells her story in her own words, writing to her only son—a final reckoning from his mother in an attempt to reveal the truth behind her downfall. Countess Báthory describes her upbringing in one of the most powerful noble houses in Hungary, recounting in loving detail her devotion to her parents and siblings as well as the heartbreak of losing her father at a young age. She soon discovers the price of being a woman in sixteenth-century Hungary as her mother arranges her marriage to Ferenc Nádasdy, a union made with the cold calculation of a financial transaction. Young Erzsébet knows she has no choice but to accept this marriage even as she laments its loveless nature and ultimately turns to the illicit affections of another man. Seemingly resigned to a marriage of convenience and a life of surreptitious pleasure, the countess surprises even herself as she ignites a marital spark with Ferenc through the most unromantic of acts: the violent punishment of an insolent female servant. The event shows Ferenc that his wife is no trophy but a strong, determined woman more than capable of managing their vast estates during Ferenc’s extensive military campaigns against the Turks. Her naked assertion of power accomplishes what her famed beauty could not: capturing the love of her husband. The countess embraces this new role of loving wife and mother, doing everything she can to expand her husband’s power and secure her family’s future. But a darker side surfaces as Countess Báthory’s demand for virtue, obedience, and, above all, respect from her servants takes a sinister turn. What emerges is not only a disturbing, unflinching portrait of the deeds that gave Báthory the moniker “Blood Countess,” but an intimate look at the woman who became a monster.
Download or read book The Blood Confession written by Alisa M. Libby and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cursed at birth, the beautiful and ruthless young Erzebet becomes obsessed with achieving eternal youth and begins to bathe in the blood of virgin girls in order to preserve her beauty. Based on the life of the "Blood Countess," who lived in Hungary in the 1500s.
Download or read book The Progeny written by Tosca Lee and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Tosca Lee brings a modern twist to an ancient mystery surrounding Elizabeth Bathory, the most notorious female serial killer of all time. Emily Jacobs is the descendant of a serial killer. Now, she’s become the hunted. She’s on a quest that will take her to the secret underground of Europe and the inner circles of three ancient orders—one determined to kill her, one devoted to keeping her alive, and one she must ultimately save. Filled with adrenaline, romance, and reversals, The Progeny is the present-day saga of a 400-year-old war between the uncanny descendants of “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Bathory, the most prolific female serial killer of all time, and a secret society dedicated to erasing every one of her descendants. It is a story about the search for self filled with centuries-old intrigues against the backdrop of atrocity and hope.
Download or read book Countess Elizabeth Bathory written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-11 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures*Includes historic accounts of the Countess' life and crimes*Includes footnotes, online resources, and a bibliography for further reading*Includes a table of contents"She didn't fear death because inside herself, she didn't conceive it as a common destiny, although she had seen it several times, although it had upset her so many times. Death is what happens to others, to the weak ones, she might have thought in her delirious blindness. As far as the physical pains and punishments were concerned, these had been exciting her ever since she was a child." - Javier Garcia Sanchez, Contesa Dracula Erzs�bet B�thoryThe legends of vampires like Dracula have generated massive interest throughout time. Indeed, the story of a man (in some versions a very handsome, dashing man), who feeds on the blood of virgins in order to survive, and who walks the earth only at night, has been revived throughout the centuries in different forms. However, one famous tale that has been lost among the legends is the story of a female Dracula, an educated woman from a well-known family of 16th century Hungary who was so afraid to lose her beauty and young looks that she engaged in dangerous practices, combining witchcraft with exsanguination.Countess Elizabeth B�thory is this female Dracula. She is said to have drained the blood of approximately 600 young women, in order to drink it, spread it all over her body as a nurturing blend, or simply to bathe in it. Her preferences for such practices can be explained by several factors, including the practices of the time as far as torture was concerned, her genetic heritage, personal madness, and the fear of fading beauty. Despite the general impression that B�thory was exsanguinating these girls and bathing in their blood, it appears that she did much more. Sources indicate that most of the girls had been beaten, tortured, and even forced into particular sexual activities. Regardless, her attempts to do anything to keep her beauty apparently went for naught, because upon her death, B�thory was no longer the beautiful and young woman she desired to be. In essence, it seems that all her criminal efforts had been in vain.Based on her behavior and the reactions to it throughout time, it is virtually impossible to set Erzs�bet B�thory in a character typology. On one hand, she could be considered a bored wife left alone by her husband for long periods of time, time that she used to develop passions for same-sex relations and an acute interest in inflicting pain on her victims. She might be seen as a mentally unstable person who found great joy in torturing others. Perhaps most disturbing of all, there's a possibility that the countess was a common character within the nobility of the 16th century who was acting normally based on the customs and norms of her era. Adding to the mystery of the story is that historical records are still mostly inaccessible because of the language barriers (most historical sources are in Hungarian). As a result, researchers interested in her life story and history usually rely on a limited number of available sources, such as biographies, articles, published letters said to have belonged to her, and scholarly articles on the topic.Countess Elizabeth Bathory: The Life and Legacy of History's Most Prolific Female Serial Killer details the mysterious and sordid history of one of the world's first and worst serial killers. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Countess Bathory like never before, in no time at all.
Download or read book The Blood Countess written by Tara Moss and published by Echo. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pandora English is no ordinary small town orphan. When she's invited to live with her mysterious Great-Aunt Celia in New York City, she seizes the opportunity to escape her stifling hometown, break from her tragic past and make it as a writer. Things, however, are not what she is expecting. For starters, her great aunt's gothic mansion is in a mist-wreathed Manhattan suburb that doesn't appear on maps. And then there's Celia herself- a former designer to the stars of Hollywood's Golden Age - who is elegant, unnaturally young and always wearing a veil. Pandora lands a job at a fashion magazine and her first assignment is covering the A-list launch of the latest miracle cream, BloodofYouth. But something is not right about the product, nor Athanasia, the drop-dead beautiful face of the brand. It seems there may be a secret ingredient in BloodofYouth, a secret worth killing for...
Download or read book The Private Letters of Countess Erzs bet B thory written by Kimberly L. Craft and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, readers are given a rare glimpse into the life of Hungary's most controversial noblewoman, Countess Erzs�bet (Elizabeth) B�thory. Over 40 letters and documents, many of which have been recently discovered and translated, are presented here for the first time in English. Read the private letters Lady B�thory sent in secret to fellow nobility, learn how she administered her estates, and experience life as she knew it. Historical background is provided as well as biographical material. This book is an excellent resource for the B�thory scholar and enthusiast who is looking for new and factual information on the so-called Infamous lady.
Download or read book Dracula written by Bram Stoker and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-23 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HOME TITLES GENRES AUTHORS LANGUAGES NEW TITLES RECOMMENDED POPULAR Dracula Cover image for Download download author: Bram Stoker published: 1897 language: English wordcount: 160,098 / 423 pg flesch-kincaid reading ease: 73.3 loc category: PR series: World's Best Reading audiobook: librivox.org downloads: 117,966 mnybks.net#: 6694 origin: gutenberg.org more info: litsum.com genres: Horror, Gothic, Fiction and Literature, Audiobook Read Online in Browser Here The world's best-known vampire story begins by following a naive young Englishman as he visits Transylvania to meet a client, the mysterious Count Dracula. Upon revealing his true nature, Dracula boards a ship for England, where chilling and gruesome disasters begin to befall the people of London... Show Excerpt ll and opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us. "Look! Isten szek!"--"God's seat!"--and he crossed himself reverently. As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasized by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink. Here and there we passed Cszeks and slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent. By the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves. Here and there was a peasant man or woman kneeling before a shrine, who did not even turn round as we approached, but seemed in the self-surrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer world. There were many things new to me. For instance, hay-ricks in the trees, and here and there very beautiful masses of wee
Download or read book The Blood Countess written by Annouchka Bayley and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2023-11-28 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two women separated by five hundred years, each with a secret - the infamous ‘Blood Countess’(1560-1614), notorious for bathing in the blood of six-hundred-and-fifty women in Renaissance Hungary and Transylvania; and the woman driven to re-write her story in the present - an academic who lives in and out of time because of a near death experience and who escapes ruin at the hands of rival scholars desperate to see her and her world destroyed at any cost. But Bathory’s story will be told! Not as a murderer or a dark witch, as history would have us believe today, but as a woman who became a subversive printer and smuggler of banned books, rocked the religious foundations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with only a band of faithful refugee women to help her, and who’s revolutionary ideas would challenge even the Emperor himself! Bathory’s modern day chronicler becomes the cipher of this secret history, uncovering the real life of the Blood Countess. What she doesn’t know is that the Blood Countess is rewriting her across time... Based on 100s of hours of original historical research, this novel is a transformational account of not only of the infamous story of the so-called Blood Countess, but a searing exploration of what history is and what history does to women.
Download or read book Poison Priestess Lady Slayers written by Lana Popovic and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Book 2 in the Lady Slayers series, about French murderess and fortune teller Catherine Monvoisin In 17th-century Paris, 19-year-old Catherine Monvoisin is a well-heeled jeweler’s wife with a peculiar taste for the arcane. She lives a comfortable life, far removed from a childhood of abject destitution—until her kind spendthrift of a husband lands them both in debt. Hell-bent on avoiding a return to poverty, Catherine must rely on her prophetic visions and the grimoire gifted to her by a talented diviner to reinvent herself as a sorceress. With the help of the grifter Marie Bosse, Catherine divines fortunes in the IIle de la Citee—home to sorcerers and scoundrels. There she encounters the Marquise de Montespan, a stunning noblewoman. When the Marquise becomes Louis XIV’s royal mistress with Catherine’s help, her ascension catapults Catherine to notoriety. Catherine takes easily to her glittering new life as the Sorceress La Voisin, pitting the depraved noblesse against one other to her advantage. The stakes soar ever higher when her path crosses with that of a young magician. A charged rivalry between sorceress and magician leads to Black Masses, tangled deceptions, and grisly murder—and sets Catherine on a collision course that threatens her own life.
