Bloodlust & Bonnets

by Emily McGovern

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of Bloodlust & Bonnets through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Have you ever seen those comics floating around online, the ones titled My Life As a Background Slytherin? Well, Emily McGovern is the brain and artist behind that series, and she’s just about to release her first graphic novel!
If you’re a fan of the humor within her webcomics, then I assure you that you’ll enjoy Bloodlust & Bonnets. The humor is spot-on for what I expected from Emily McGovern – a cross between whimsical and insane.
Bloodlust & Bonnets is a fun twist on classic Romantic literature…with vampires. But that’s part of what makes it so much fun! The graphic novel is set in the 1800s in Britain. But nothing is quite as it seems, or that you would expect.
If you’re looking for a series that contains British humor, hilarious and sometimes inane moments, vampire hunting, quirky characters, and characters not sure about their sexuality, then Bloodlust & Bonnets is the tale for you.


Bloodlust & Bonnets is Emily McGovern’s first graphic novel – and she nailed it. I really do mean it when I say that fans of her webcomic series are going to love this one. I know I did! It was fun and silly and odd, everything I had hoped it would be and then some.
The series is about an odd trio of characters odd on an epic vampire hunt. Only their motives are suspect, and nothing ever seems to go according to plan. The end result is a chaotic adventure full of entertainment for the readers.
Lucy is a unique debutant, to put it lightly. She hunts vampires, though perhaps her new career path was more a strange series of coincidences than anything else. Not that we blame her for going on a murderous rampage in that time in history or anything…
Meanwhile the first of her companions, Lord Byron is more or less exactly what you can expect. He’s a man who thinks a little too much of himself and a little too little of everyone around him. He’s every male romantic trope rolled into one. Only he hunts vampires. Because…well that’s for you to find out, I guess.
Sham is the third character on this little journey of ours, and perhaps my favorite of the three. Well, maybe second favorite, I do adore Lucy. Sham is the polar opposite of the first two. For one thing, they seem to actually know what they’re doing. I adored Sham and all of the little jokes that revolved around their character.
The plot itself was quite funny, with lots of quips and inane humor thrown into the mix. I loved all of the jumps between locations and events – it seemed just as scattered as our set of characters. So it was actually quite perfect.
The tone is very similar to that of My Life As a Background Slytherin, so I know fans of the series will love it. But maybe new fans won’t get it to quite the same level? Something to think about. And of course, the art style is very similar as well. Something that always makes me smile.
I absolutely loved Bloodlust & Bonnets, and can’t believe I got a chance to read it a little bit early. Sadly, now I have that much longer of a wait to see what Emily McGovern does next.


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