I'm afraid if you didn't understand that the reason Hungerstone isn't a capital R Romance novel in which two women become deeply entangled and deeply in love is because it is actually a capital G Gothic novel about a woman being awakened to desire by the literal embodiment of hunger itself, a vampire, then you cannot be trusted to read a book and understand a theme
like. if you want Romantic Sapphism I get it but Hungerstone isn't doing that. It's not about that and that is NOT because of some failure of straight woman writing lesbians! it's a Gothic novel for crying out loud, it's like asking Wuthering Heights to be a comedy of manners a la Emma. what next, shall it be a book about two lesbians rescuing a cat in the Alps and falling in love on the way??
the amount that Hungerstone NAILS the social dynamics of Lenore's position, the abandonment by her husband, the yearning to be loved or even to be touched with any affection or attraction; any acknowledgement that he might care for her. The way Henry compliments her by saying she is like a man in her emotions! And then...enter the vampire. Hunger. And oh...she is hungry. It is not ABOUT LOVE!! It is about WANT. It is about STARVING. It is about DESIRE and someone showing up, stripping away every wall you have built to keep yourself carefully shielded from your own howling yearning starvation for love, and saying want.
It's called HUNGERstone for the love of-
