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Countess

  • kjoannerixon
  • May 27
  • 1 min read
a woman in half-mask and cape against a gas giant landscape, in shades of dark purple
Countess, by Suzan Palumbo

The only thing wrong with Countess is that it's too short. The bones of the story--a retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, with a Caribbean lesbian protagonist, in space--are fascinating and delightful. The stakes are high, the characters believable and vivid, and the descriptions of food actually made me hungry.


I read The Count of Monte Cristo in high school, not for school but for fun, and loved it. A human being pushed to absolute extremity is a compelling protagonist, but of course the fun part is all the vengeance, intricately plotted and immaculately executed. It's almost a kind of murder mystery type story, but uncovered by the assassin rather than a detective, since there is no detective capable of opposing our hero.


Countess, unfortunately, gets thin in the second half, which tries to cram all the complex, plotty vengeance and also an entire revolution into the last 40% of a short novella. Can't be done, so the prose gets dry and the plot gets described after events have finished. I wish there were space in the publishing industry for a book like this to be expanded to the length it deserves. It's a rare book that could genuinely have been ten times as long and still a great read.

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