**Content Warning: intimate partner violence/abuse (see Ellen's comments below)**

*Reluctant Immortals* is a horror novel that looks at two despicable men of classic literature and the women who survived them. Bertha (from Jane Eyre) and Lucy (from Dracula) are now undead immortals residing in Los Angeles in 1967, when Dracula and Rochester make a shocking return into their lives – all set against the backdrop of the Summer of Love in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.

Combining elements of historical and gothic fiction with a modern perspective in a tale of love and betrayal and coercion, *Reluctant Immortals* is the lyrical and harrowing journey of two women as they fight to claim their own destiny in a man’s world.

***Note from Ellen:***
Please take note of the content warning above. This is a vampire story, and the vampire mythos is, at its core, a metaphor for intimate partner violence and emotional manipulation. This novel leans hard into that metaphor, including discussions and depictions of physical and emotional abuse and coercion.

The central antagonists of the novel are two absolute scumbag predatory creeps who feel entitled to possess the women who fall under their sway, casually objectifying them, using and discarding them whenever and however they see fit. The journey of our protagonists is one of taking their agency and their power back from these men and being able to choose the life they want, and it does have satisfactory endings on that front, but anyone who's sensitive to these sorts of topics might want to skip this one. It never got to be too much for me to handle, personally – it just made the two men even easier to hate – but Kiste does NOT pull her punches. These men are monsters, and this is a horror novel, after all.

If you're a fan of vampire stories, though, definitely give this one a try – it's brilliantly done, hauntingly beautifully written and extremely evocative. Kiste does some really interesting things with the source material, riffing on Dracula's vampire lore in fun ways and expanding on what actually happened the night Bertha died as the mansion burned down, turning Rochester into something akin to a vampire but distinctly different and unique. It's truly creative – I've never seen vampires presented quite like this before.

RSVPs will close on October 16 in order to confirm our dinner reservation.

Please note that this meetup is being held at a restaurant which will hold space for us. Reserving more space than we need makes us look unreliable and creates a problem for the restaurant. If you find you're not able to attend, please update your RSVP as soon as possible. **No shows may be excluded from future in-restaurant meetings.**

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Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste @ Gordo's Tacos and Tequila

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Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste @ Gordo's Tacos and Tequila

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