“Densely plotted, with rich and pleasurable prose, it clocks in at a hair under 500 pages long and represents the arrival of a major new voice in horror fiction and perhaps the most vital, politically engaged vampire novel of the last decade.”—Ancillary Review of Books
“A luscious gaslamp fantasy that feels as close to a “classic” (if there is such a thing) vampire story as one can get, which is to say the prose is poetic and it’s queer as hell.” —Reactor
“Sara Hinkley’s The Red Sacrament is bloody epic. Evoking the lushness of Anne Rice’s best work, The Red Sacrament weaves a textured, rich brocade of theatrical vampires, unwitting victims, and one extremely cunning witch. This stunning debut plunges the reader in a decadent dreamscape of 1870s Paris, aswirl with gas lights, plunged in sepulchral darkness, and shot through with human emotion. Arnault lives, and I live for him.”
—Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger
“As elegant as it is brutal, The Red Sacrament is a nasty, atmospheric novel about capitalism and the consequences of immortality. A perfect combination of rich period detail and grimy ultraviolence.”
—Avery Curran, author of Spoiled Milk
“The Red Sacrament is a fanged guillotine of a novel with its pages pressed directly to your neck. You’ll absolutely lose your head over it. An unholy Anne Rice-Victor Hugo hybrid, written with an elegance akin to horror haute couture, this sumptuously gaslit grand guignol firmly places Sara Hinkley alongside the likes of Silvia Moreno Garcia and Isabel Cañas.”
—Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
“Lovingly crafted with scrupulous historical research and beautiful, arresting use of language. Hinkley works at the axis of passion and intelligence—her erudite curiosity for history, the arts, industry, and the sociopolitical philosophies of the time show in every word, creating an incantation that summons late 19th century Paris in charged, vivid detail. Like all exceptional theatre, The Red Sacrament is profoundly imaginative, startlingly erotic, exquisitely clever, and above all deeply entertaining. The most consequential and necessary vampire book of this generation and simply one of the most impressive literary debuts you will ever read. Truly and fully a sublime masterpiece.”
— Sofia Ajram, author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning novella Coup de Grâce
“With The Red Sacrament, Hinkley has crafted a powerful, seductive, and bloody broth that will sustain voracious readers for decades to come.”
—Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold
“The Red Sacrament is always seeking, always beckoning, deeper into its Parisian tragedy. Hinkley sends us stalking our lead vampire’s every movement while each encounter invites a Proustian resurrection of history under an immortal eye. An immersive portrait of a novel.”
—Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker award-winning author of Queen of Teeth
The Red Sacrament is a novel made for vampire lovers. Expect beautiful prose, lush descriptions of Parisian life and a story that reads like a stream of blood from a bite to the neck.—V. Castro, Bram Stoker award-nominated author of The Haunting of Alejandra
“A magnificently operatic debut for those who prefer to read by candlelight. If you love Hilary Mantel’s prose, Tana French’s darkness, or Silvia Moreno Garcia’s imaginary worlds—you need to put this on your to-read list. Now. I’ve waited three lifetimes to find a novel like this.”
—Molly McGhee, author of Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind
“The Red Sacrament is the vampire novel I did not know I hungered for all my life. Dense, erudite, complex, elegant, this impossibly-assured story presents satisfying answers to the obvious question: If you are dead, what remains worth living for?”
—Premee Mohamed, World Fantasy award-winning author of The Butcher in the Forest
“As intricately beautiful and mysterious as a Gustave Moreau painting, The Red Sacrament is a triumph: sensous and seductive, arresting in its command of prose and imagery, it ensnares you as soon as the curtain rises and doesn’t let go. Sara Hinkley has brought into existence a fully realised, wholly believable and original world and getting lost within it is a thrilling pleasure.”
—Andrea Morstabilini, author of A Blood as Bright as the Moon
“Incisive, heartfelt, electrifying, in deep conversation with the vampire genre and the human race, Hinkley has written a vital book for anyone who has loved—or been heartbroken by—either one.”
—Emery Robin, author of The Stars Undying
“Cleverly juxtaposing the decline of decadent French imperialism with the sensuous, jaded lives of a
vampire coven dug like a tick into the skin of Paris, The Red Sacrament’s hypnotic prose tackles literature’s greatest parasites, seducers, and monstrosities with compassion, insight, and unrelenting clarity. A savage, homoerotic social satire of vampirism as tender as it is remorseless, this is the future of the genre, splashed across the page in blood.”
—Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt and Black Flame
“Sara Hinkley’s The Red Sacrament is the unholy progeny of Anne Rice and Karl Marx–and mother and father are fighting. Hinkley conjures an opulent yet sordid theater world with such sleight of hand that you nearly miss that something is terribly wrong on the streets of Paris, like a dazzling dancer executing one too many pirouettes. I gasped when she pulled back the velvet curtain.”
—Natalie Adler, author of Waiting on a Friend
“Since the days of Marx, vampires have always been metaphors of the political — monsters that emerge from their crypts as society goes through instability, acting as harbingers of crisis. In our current moment, enclosed as we are by capitalism’s monsters, Sara Hinkley’s thrilling debut is an essential Gothic novel. Layering together theatre, art, erotics and horror all against the background of revolutionary Paris, The Red Sacrament is an utterly gorgeous nightmare. Written with a deep love for the horrifying and scrupulous historical research, this a book both seductive and terrifying.”
—Jon Greenaway, author of Capitalism a Horror Story: Gothic Marxism and the Dark Side of the Radical Imagination
“Vampire fans, rejoice! A new successor to the throne of Anne Rice has arrived! With lush, sensual prose and authentic period detail, Sara Hinkley transports us to historical France on the jagged edge of the Belle Époque, where dark delights await anyone with the courage to accept the invitation. Let The Red Sacrament take you behind the curtain–it has such sights to show you!
—Nicholas Kaufmann, Bram Stoker Award nominated co-author of 100 Fathoms Below
“Sara Hinkley welds decadent period writing to a genuinely angry argument about class and labour, and keeps both in balance for five hundred pages. A debut with the confidence of a fourth novel.” – Ginger Nuts of Horror
“You may feel like the vampire lore has had all of its boxes ticked at this stage, but Hinkley has shown there’s plenty more fresh blood to mine yet.” – Bloody Flicks
“The Red Sacrament is dark and bloody, richly written, and a must-read for any fan of fanged literature.” – Grimdark Magazine
Sexy, scary, and dazzling, this gorgeous horror novel will have readers in its grip long after the final page is turned.—Publishers Weekly, starred review
nterview with the Vampire fans will rejoice as Hinkley sweeps them back to both the first time they read Rice’s seminal novel and 1869 Paris, a time of growing political unrest….Beyond Rice, fans of the pacing and narrative style of Stephen Graham Jones’ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter or the demon spectacle with social commentary in Cat Scully’s Below the Grand Hotel will also enjoy this lush debut.—Booklist
A historical horror of epic proportions!—Crime Reads
