Thirst

‘It takes courage to write about vampires: they are the greatest of monsters, but also the most trivialised. Marina Yuszczuk manages to bring hers to life in this intimate take on the genre, which also weaves together grief, the history of Buenos Aires, and the voracity of desire.’

-- Mariana Enriquez, author of Our Share of Night

‘This gripping tale is full of queer representation and lush, lyrical passages, all while exploring death with an air of nihilism … Vampires are making a comeback, and Yuszczuk is spearheading their revival with this bloody novel.’

* The New York Times *

‘Yuszcuk allows her vampire to resonate with the brutal world of colonial Argentina, though ultimately the author is more interested in gender and vampirism’s traditional association with female sexuality … Thirst, intelligently and stylishly written — as per the translation by Heather Cleary — is definitely one of the superior reincarnations of the vampire story.’

-- Maria Takolander * The Saturday Paper *

‘Two women walk the streets of Buenos Aires two centuries apart. They are connected by exile and blood: the exile of a vampire who fled Europe like so many others, and the exile of a woman on the brink of orphanhood; the blood of kinship and the blood of death. Marina Yuszczuk masterfully blends past and present, the intimate and the historical, and the literary traditions that have shaped Argentine literature into what it is today to create a sensual and deeply personal novel.’

-- Fernanda Trías, author of Pink Slime

‘Sex and violence take centre stage in this gothic tale as the horrors that Buenos Aires and Yuszczuk’s characters face continue to slowly unfurl. The novel takes its time, building gradually to the electric moment when the two women finally meet … What truly shines are the author’s knowledge of vampire lore and her dedication to creating a monster who could easily join the ranks of Dracula and Nosferatu. A blood-soaked tale of sex, love, and ennui that would make Anne Rice proud.’

* Kirkus Reviews *

‘Yuszczuk draws on a wide range of source texts. Her vampire is variously a Gothic seductress who calls to mind Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla; the kind of tortured soul familiar to readers of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire; a vigilante in sunglasses reminiscent of Blade; and an almost moral monster who bemoans her own violent existence in the mode of the creature in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.’

-- Eleanor Spencer-Regan * Australian Book Review *

‘Thirst cleverly pulls you in with its melancholy prose and its setting and its haunting mood and before you know it you’ve read the whole thing while chewing on your hair. An evocative tale that both recalls and subverts the classic gothic vampire novel. What a mesmerising read.’

-- Virginia Feito, author of Mrs March

‘There is the powerful beat of a gothic heart in this gripping, dark, and sensual novel. Intimate and piercing, it manages to dissect maternal love while examining the nature of desire. A captivating and thrilling read.’

-- Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Dead Relatives

‘Mesmerisingly translated by Cleary, Yuszczuk’s prose is meticulous, vibrant, propulsive, and masterfully paced. Her characterisations will stir readers’ emotions, empathy in particular; we suffer characters’ longing, their mournful feelings of being locked into inescapable circumstances. Thirst is an intense, haunting, and captivating novel that draws readers in from beginning to end.’

-- Booklist, starred review

‘If we’re in the midst of a vampire renaissance, Marina Yuszczuk’s bloody, seductive contribution arrives with fangs bared. Dark as a bat’s wing, Thirst feels like Carmen Maria Machado meets Anne Rice, with a backdrop of Buenos Aires. Absolutely exquisite.’

-- Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller

‘This is an excellent novel. Yuszczuk is masterful at using the monstrous and the immortal to shed light on ordinary human things.’

-- Marina Scholtz * Literary Review *

‘Marina Yuszczuk is a literary force, I'm obsessed and she’s going straight into my auto-buy authors list. This is one of those novels that I can definitely see myself re-reading in the future and highlighting all my favourite quotes and passages. I absorbed this novel in two days and it’s one of my favourite things I’ve read this year.’

-- Jamie Lee * Waterstones Trafford Centre *

‘Thirst is unlike anything I’ve read before. The narrative is so gripping and immersive, and the characters jump off the page, they feel so real!’

-- Chloe Michelle Howarth, author of Sunburn

‘It is *everything* I was craving at the moment since I’ve been desperate for a literary horror to get me ready for autumn.’

-- @bookenders

‘Pensive and erotic … I was entranced by Yuszczuk’s writing, which captures a century of national transformation within its deeply personal, emotive narrative and delivers a thrilling interpretation of gothic tropes.’

-- Joe Murray * Readings *

‘Marina Yuszczuk’s blending of traditional vampiric imagery with the Buenos Aires setting was masterful and you really got a sense of the vampire story as a global story, which is unfortunately rare.’

-- Natalie Wall * Ginger Nuts of Horror *

‘This isn’t your typical meet-cute. When two women — one grieving, the other a vampire, both of them alienated and yearning for more — cross paths in a Buenos Aires cemetery, romance blooms. Channeling Carmen Maria Machado and Anne Rice, Yuszczuk reimagines the vampire novel, with a distinctly Latin American feminist Gothic twist.’

* The Millions *

‘Thirst marks the arrival of an exciting new voice in Gothic literature that readers are sure to enjoy sinking their teeth into.’

* Polygon *

‘If it’s a sapphic twist on the paranormal you’re looking for, vampires are always a safe bet. In Yuszczuk’s feminist gothic fantasia, a 19th-century vampire and a modern-day woman encounter one another in a Buenos Aires cemetery, and their meeting ignites a fire between the two.’

* Harper’s Bazaar *

‘If you liked … Our Share of Night, the 1970s-set literary vampire novel from Mariana Enriquez, then you’ll want to read Thirst immediately. In Marina Yuszczuk’s gorgeously written gothic, a centuries-old vampire living in Buenos Aires forms a magnetic connection with a haunted mother as both seek endless nourishment for an impossible-to-fill void.’

* CrimeReads *

’I enjoyed the narrators’ lack of hypocrisy and abundance of interiority. I also appreciated how the novel retains all of their dark and stylistic delight, without the aching inconclusiveness or censor-friendly endings of its pulpy and gothic paperback predecessors … Heather Cleary’s translation maintains a lush, tactile lyricism that swept me into the history … The vibes were, to put it succinctly, immaculate.’

* Lesbary *

‘Twilight, but make it sapphic? I present you Thirst on a sexy, silver platter. Set in Buenos Aires across two different time periods, this novel is all about female agency, desire, and fragility.’

* Betches *

‘Thirst is an enjoyable enough story in which plenty of blood is spilled and the two women featured do their best to get on with their lives, whether natural or unnatural … Thirst is all about the appeal of the unknown, and the desire to submit to the supernatural, and I’m sure many a reader will be happy enough to give in and take a walk on the dark side.’

* Tony’s Reading Li