The riveting, dazzling new historical thriller from the SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING author of The Fascination

Book blurb

When the disgraced Lord Byron is associated with the deaths of women in Venice, he turns detective to unveil the killer and clear his name.

Fiction can be fatal…
Living in exile in Venice, the disgraced Lord Byron revels in the freedoms of the city. But when he is associated with the deaths of local women, found with wounds to their throats, and then a novel called The Vampyre is published under his name, rumours begin to spread that Byron may be the murderer…
As events escalate and tensions rise – and his own life is endangered, as well as those he holds most dear – Byron is forced to play detective, to discover who is really behind these heinous crimes. Meanwhile, the scandals of his own infamous past come back to haunt him…
Rich in gothic atmosphere and drawing on real events and characters from Byron’s life, Dangerous is a riveting, dazzling historical thriller, as decadent, dark and seductive as the poet himself…

My thoughts

When reading Dangerous I was fascinated by the true historical content and admiring of the amount of research that had been undertaken to include those facts but also to spark the imagination of Essie Fox and form the idea that became this wonderful story.

A with a claustrophobic feel, a setting mainly in 19th century Venice a beautiful city that nevertheless easily lends itself to being a dark and dangerous place we follow Byron’s fate as a vengeful being carries out a plan to discredit him. Spreading rumours inferring he is guilty of horrendous crimes which along with his reputation for being a womaniser and worse having come to Venice under exile makes for a wonderfully gothic story.

This is a book that sweeps you away in a historical mystery that feels as true as anything you read in Dangerous with its real life characters and places but, of course, this the genius of the author who has conjured up a wonderfully atmospheric and compelling narrative weaving a fascinating and fantastic tale that has Lord Byron caught up in an accusation of being a murderer and quite possibly a vampire!

This is a dark, intriguing story of scandal, mystery and revenge with a dazzling historical setting and characters both real and imagined bringing the reader a tale of dread that is both compelling and engrossing. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would certainly recommend reading Dangerous.

Thanks

Many thanks to Anne at RandomThingsTours for the invitation to join the BlogTour for Dangerous and to the incredible Orenda Books for providing an eARC for the purpose of reading and sharing my thoughts on Dangerous by Essie Fox.

BlogTour

Why not take a look at these wonderful blogs over the coming weeks? You can find below links to purchase your very own copy of Dangerous.

Lord Byron

Here are just a few of the sites I visited besides Essie Fox’s (see author information below) as I went down a rabbit hole of reading around Lord Byron, Poldari, Venice and other interesting things that were mentioned or occurred in this book.

The Byron Society – About Lord Byron

The Byron Journal – About | Archive* – Subscription (required to access full archive content). Currently there two articles that can be read for free*: Byron and Slavery by Christine Kenyon Jones | Byron’s Dark Side: Human and Natural Catastrophe in Don Juan and ‘Darkness’ by Alexander Regier

The Byron Society – bursaries

 The Byron JournalVol. 47, No. 1 6 Jan 2019

 The Byron JournalVol. 51, No. 2 24 Feb 2024

Lord Byron by Ellen Castlelow

Lord Byron | authentic Venetian by Pieralvise Zorzi

With Byron in Venice by Caroline Warfield

Byron’s sighs and loves over three years in a palace on the Grand Canal in Venice by Patrick Comerford

Historic UK – Lord Byron

Westminster Abbey – Lord Byron

Poetry Foundation – Lord Byron

Wordsworth Grasmere has a number of articles on Lord Byron, his contemporaries and those around him including Poldari, the Shelley’s, Claire Clairmont and Byron and his women… by Alexander Larman

“Mad, bad and dangerous to know.” Lady Caroline Lamb on Lord Byron

The Tragic Unsolved Mystery of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Love Child by Stacey K Eskelin

Ada Lovelace by Terry MacEwen

Project Gutenberg – John Poldari Diaries | National Portrait Gallery – Poldari Portrait

Venice

Italy – Venice | Venice and its lagoons | LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA

There was more but I think that the books referenced in the authors Notes – which really should be read – after the end of Dangerous along with her acknowledgments which includes some interesting handles for those online social media references and last but not least there is also an excellent bibliography.

Information

Published: Orenda Books Ltd: HARDBACK original with sprayed edges, foil and embossing | £16.99 | 25 April 2025 | 300pp |

Buy: Orenda | AmazonSmileUK | Hive (currently best price for hardback)| Bookshop.org (affiliate link) | Your local bookshop | Your local library

Author: Essie Fox was born and raised in rural Herefordshire, which inspires much of her writing. After studying English Literature at Sheffield University, she moved to London where she worked for the Telegraph Sunday Magazine, then the book publishers George Allen & Unwin – before becoming self-employed in the world of art and design. Always an avid reader, Essie now spends her time writing historical gothic novels. Her debut, The Somnambulist, was shortlisted for the National Book Awards, and featured on Channel 4’s TV Book Club. The Last Days of Leda Grey, set in the early years of silent film, was selected as The Times Historical Book of the Month. Her latest novel, The Fascination is based in Victorian country fairgrounds, the glamour of the London theatres, and an Oxford Street museum full of morbid curiosities. Essie is also the creator of the popular blog: The Virtual Victorian. She has lectured on this era at the V&A, and the National Gallery in London.

Essie Fox website | X – formerly Twitter

Books

All books can be purchased at Bookshop.org (affiliate link) | Your local bookshop | other online retailers | or from Your local library

The Last Days of Leda Grey | The Goddess and the Thief | Elijah’s Mermaid | The Sonambulist

Orenda Books

The Fascination | Dangerous

Sunday Times bestselling author, Essie Fox’s books have been shortlisted for the British Book Awards and featured on Channel 4’s TV Book Club