Opium and Absinthe by Lydia Kang

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Strong language, drug use, an attempted rape 


New York City, 1899. Tillie Pembroke’s sister lies dead, her body drained of blood and with two puncture wounds on her neck. Bram Stoker’s new novel, Dracula, has just been published, and Tillie’s imagination leaps to the impossible: the murderer is a vampire. But it can’t be—can it?

A ravenous reader and researcher, Tillie has something of an addiction to truth, and she won’t rest until she unravels the mystery of her sister’s death. Unfortunately, Tillie’s addicted to more than just truth; to ease the pain from a recent injury, she’s taking more and more laudanum…and some in her immediate circle are happy to keep her well supplied.

Tillie can’t bring herself to believe vampires exist. But with the hysteria surrounding her sister’s death, the continued vampiric slayings, and the opium swirling through her body, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for a girl who relies on facts and figures to know what’s real—or whether she can trust those closest to her.

I went into this knowing that this author's books are hit or miss with me. Miss more often, to be honest, but somehow the beautiful covers always draw me in. Plus the description for this one sounded so intriguing. The beginning of the book pulled me in pretty easily. Tillie seemed like an unusual, somewhat quirky girl, and I could get behind that. Unfortunately she ended up being very foolish and came off too young for her age. 

One of my problems with the book as a whole is it felt rather YA when it's supposed to be an adult novel. Then there is the whole issue of nothing much happening except for Tillie spiraling into opium addiction for most of the book. There are three murdered bodies discovered within that time as well, but it just felt like the book was more about addiction than anything else. 

The added in "vampire" intrigue was not a bad idea, but there wasn't enough of it, and it seemed like Tillie made one bad decision after another while purporting to investigate what happened to her sister. There weren't enough clues dropped for this to be a good mystery. Tillie mostly just stumbled onto things while being foolish, and that left me, as the reader wondering where it was going. After this one, I'm not sure if I'll read any more books by this author.