The book is a fictionalization of the life of Elizabeth Bathory, known as the “Blood Countess” of Hungary—one of the most prolific serial killers in history. Johns’ first novel, “Icebergs,” was a finalist for the 2007 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for first fiction, and she is a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Award. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, the Harvard Review, the Mississippi Review, the Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan, Mademoiselle, Ladies’ Home Journal, Self and Seventeen.