The Nightingale’s Castle: A Novel of Erzsébet Báthory, the Blood Countess

In 16th-century Hungary, Boróka, a young, naive, orphaned peasant girl with a mysterious heritage, arrives at the castle of the widowed Erzsébet Báthory. There are rumors floating around the Carpathian Mountains that Báthory (who is not yet known as “the Blood Countess”) has murdered peasant girls and bathed in their blood. But as the Black Plague rages through the castle and the countryside, Boróka and Báthory find a kinship that neither expected. Both women are afraid and appalled when the forces of Church and Crown conspire to ruin the countess’s reputation to make the confiscation of her lands and wealth seem just. This reimagining of Báthory’s narrative uses the few verifiable facts of the real woman’s life and trial to construct a compelling reinterpretation of events—one that, instead of invoking Dracula and bloodthirst, posits Báthory as the victim of a conspiracy to take away the wealth and power of intelligent and educated woman and put her in her place.