What would you sacrifice to bring back someone you love? Your freedom? Your life? Your soul?
In A Steep and Savage Path, Sunday Times bestselling author JJA Harwood delivers a haunting journey through grief, love, and the dark beauty of death itself. This isn’t your average vampire romance—it’s a gothic fairytale soaked in longing, layered with myth, and absolutely dripping in atmosphere. Think The Cruel Prince meets The Crimson Moth… if both had a doomed wedding, an underworld pact, and enemies-to-lovers slow burn that ripped you in two.
🕯️ Let’s set the scene.
In a quiet Transylvanian village cursed by terror, Irina volunteers as the “bride” in a ritual meant to stop the hunger of a deadly vampire. It’s called the Wedding of the Dead—a ceremonial sacrifice meant to appease a monster.
But Irina has her own motives. Her sister’s soul is trapped in the afterlife, and she intends to bring it back. She strikes a dangerous bargain with her undead groom: if he escorts her through the underworld safely, he can drink her blood as much as he pleases.
What follows is a perilous descent into a realm of nightmare and beauty, as Irina and Stefan trek through mythological horror in search of something they both have lost.
But there’s one twist neither of them expected…
💔 They might be each other’s only salvation.
🔥 Why This Book Bites Back:
This novel is layered. Every page simmers with longing, with grief, with the sharp ache of loving something you’re supposed to fear. Irina is fierce, flawed, and utterly human. She walks willingly into death, not for love—but for vengeance, for sisterhood, for hope. And Stefan? He’s the best kind of vampire: old, restrained, terrifyingly powerful—and slowly, achingly humanized.
Their banter sizzles. Their trust is earned. And their romance? The kind that curls around your heart and threatens never to let go.
💀 You’ll love this book if you crave:
- 🖤 Vampire x mortal bride
- 🦇 Gothic underworld aesthetics
- 🪦 Bargains with the dead
- 🧠 Mythology meets grief
- 💔 Enemies to allies to something deeper
- 🫱 “Let me be the monster if it saves you” energy
- 🪓 Impossible choices
- 💉 “Drink my blood, but don’t fall in love with me”
- 🔥 Forbidden yearning + poetic prose
📖 Final Thoughts:
A Steep and Savage Path is heartbreak wrapped in velvet. It’s the ache of a blood oath, the tension of forbidden love, and the desperation of a girl willing to cross realms for her sister… only to find herself falling for the very monster who was meant to destroy her.
JJA Harwood proves again why she’s a master of gothic fantasy. This is a book about sacrifice, survival, and whether love can bloom in the shadow of death.
If you’re ready to be emotionally wrecked by a story that drips with romance, dread, and the sweetest kind of suffering—read this. And bring tissues.
Get your copy here
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