Review: 'The Red Sacrament' by Sara Hinkley

Look at that cover, just look at it. It drew me in immediately and the book matches its hypnotic quality perfectly. The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley is a rich book, full of detail, and yet I feel like it flew by. I am enormously impressed by it and it's probably going to be one of my favourite books this year. Thanks to Titan Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 07/07/2026
Publisher: Titan Books

Paris, 1869. The Théâtre Saint-Siméon is the place to be, if you can get in. The black slips of paper that guarantee entry are rare and highly desired, and given only to certain persons. The actors on stage are magnetic and ageless, performing only at midnight and never seen during the day…

Arnault and his clan of vampires have survived for as long as they have by observing a rigid set of rules. At night, they perform on stage at the Théâtre Saint-Siméon, picking off just enough people in the audience to survive. But they understand the city, and how to live in it without being noticed. 

Their peace is shattered first with a visit from Béatrice, a witch who forms a strange connection to Arnault; then with the arrival of Victor de Rouvray and his sister Françoise, vampires from a very different world. And, as Arnault grows closer and closer to the beautiful, enigmatic Victor, he risks becoming distracted from the constant bickering of his immortal friends, from the daily running of the theatre, and worse, from the premonitions of blood, death and starvation that he receives at night. 

For a terrible change is on the horizon, revolt and revolution are brewing in the streets and soon, the city, and Arnault will never be the same again.

So what happens to me often happened to me with The Red Sacrament. I saw it on NetGalley, loved the blurb, requested it, got it, and then forgot what it was about immediately until I finally sat down to read it. I don't actually mind this process because it means that I go into books almost completely blind but with the knowledge that I liked the sound of it. Not knowing something can sometimes help. This was doubly true with The Red Sacrament because after finishing it I saw some people write about its similarity to Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, specifically her character of Armand and his theatre. Now, while I eagerly follow the TV show through what people say about it on Tumblr, I haven't actually read Anne Rice's books. I have seen the Tom Cruise film and retain vague memories of it, but none of that was enough to trigger an "oh wait, this is exactly like..."-moment for me with Sara Hinkley's book. I can't really speak to the similarities, therefore, but I found Johnny Dangerously's review on Goodreads really useful in thinking about this. He argues that even though Anne Rice and Sara Hinkley's books share a starting point, they are drastically different in what they focus on, what their themes are, etc. and this rang true for me as well. To me, The Red Sacrament really feels like its own thing, but for readers more deeply familiar with Rice's work this may differ.

Arnault is in charge of his clan of vampires and the theatre they call home. They have their rules about who to eat when, just like they have their rules about who gets to perform what. Their careful life is thrown into disarray when a number of things seem to quickly change: a set of vampire twins arrives, both glamorous and somewhat odd, weird murders start to haunt Paris, and war is on the horizon. Add to that a scary visit from a witch which somehow won't let Arnault go and we have a situation ripe for drama. I really liked the characters and how heavy of a presence time becomes. Arnault is hundreds of years old and he brings all kinds of experience to the table, but he is never just one thing; he is clever and experienced, but at other times he is rash, unthinking, even forgetful. The vampires around him in his troupe are equally marked by their own pasts, their pride, vanity, kindness, or fear, but also by their long experience. Since they are actors, it is all drama and yet it is also the comfort of familiar moves, similar arguments, eventual reconciliations. More than any other vampire book I've read, The Red Sacrament emphasises the heavy weight of time, of long life. It's not just that they have a lot of memories overlapping one another, but there is also the contrast between those who are two hundred years old and those who are merely five years into vampirehood. All of that comes together to draw a really intriguing image. Add to that my perhaps favourite character, the witch Béatrice, the bustling of Paris, the never not revolutionary character of the French, the effects of the Industrial Revolution, and war, and you have a novel that is just thick, in the best ways.

It feels almost illegal that The Red Sacrament is a debut novel. The only way to describe The Red Sacrament is sumptuous. Sara Hinkley is a costume designer and you can really tell she has an incredibly eye for detail, colour, texture, light, even taste and smell. I really felt like all my senses were in play during the reading of this book and I think that has a lot to do with how obsessed I got with this book. There is also a solid control to the book, though, despite its size and expansiveness. I never felt as if Hinkley didn't know exactly what she was doing, even when we took little detours into plot lines or extensive descriptions that are perhaps, technically, not entirely necessary. If you like your prose purple, and don't think of the label "purple prose" as a negative, then The Red Sacrament is probably for you. If you like witches and vampires that are both the stuff of legends but also, somehow, still deeply humna, then The Red Sacrament is probably for you. If you, like me, often have 'À la volonté du peuple' stuck in your head, you'll probably enjoy the revolutionary drama of The Red Sacrament. If you like stories about the burden of time, the joys of art and theatre, the yearning for understanding, adn the meandering of the mind, then The Red Sacrament is definitely the book for you. I can't wait to see what Sara Hinkley writes next.

I give this book...

5 Universes!

The Red Sacrament was, in many ways, perfect to me. It was sumptuous, it was messy, it had witches but also French revolutions, and I loved its pondering about time. I think that anyone who enjoys reading about vampires and/or loves novels that are really detailed and perhaps a little purple-prosey should get to this one ASAP.