Publisher

Little, Brown & Co

Printer

Clays Ltd

Year Written/Published

2005

Country

Great Britain

ISBN

0 316 73031 9

Binding

Hardcover

Pages

642

Genre

Thriller/Historical

Blurb

“To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history...”

Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters addressed ominously to 'My dear and unfortunate successor'. Her discovery plunges her into a world she has never dreamed of – a labyrinth where the secret of her father's past and her mothers mysterious fate connects to an evil hidden in the depths of history.

In those few quiet moments, she unwittingly assumes a quest she will discover is her birthright – a hunt for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the Dracula myth.

What does the legend of Dracula have to do with the modern world? The answer to this question crosses time and borders, from the archive libraries of Oxford to Istanbul and Budapest, and into the depths of Eastern Europe. Deciphering obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions, and evading terrifying adversaries, one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil.

My Opinion

I've always enjoyed vampire stories, particularly the ones that are set in the most realistic world possible, so finding this book was a bonus. It's set in unstable Europe, and is told through a series of letters and documents. The writing is vivid, and although I found some parts hard to get through, I really enjoyed the formal style of much of the writing. Each section is written in a definitive style, from six-hundred-year-old travel diaries to postcards written in the 1960's, and still manages to keep you interested.

I really enjoyed the story itself, even though I sometimes felt a bit lost – the idea of finding Dracula seemed to be overtaken by distractions, which, although they were as riveting as the rest of the tale, gave me the feeling I was never going to finish the book.

Date Finished

23/12/2006

Rating

6/10