Dracul
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
The prequel to Dracula, inspired by notes and texts left behind by the author of the classic novel, Dracul is a supernatural thriller that reveals not only Dracula’s true origins but Bram Stoker’s—and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them.
It is 1868, and a twenty-one-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here...
A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents' Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen—a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen—and that the nightmare they've thought long ended is only beginning.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Promoted as a prequel to Dracula, this novel is a melodramatized family history that proposes author Bram Stoker and his siblings confronted an undead nemesis early in their lives. Set for the most part in Ireland and told through a mix of straightforward narrative, personal letters, and journal and diary entries spanning the second half of the 19th century, it relates how a sickly young Bram was brought back from death's doorstep by the bite of his nursemaid, the mysterious Ellen Crone. Years after Ellen's abrupt disappearance from their lives, Bram, his sister Matilda, and his brother Thornley are drawn into a web of intrigues when they discover that Ellen is a Dearg-Due, a bloodsucking being of Irish folklore who is under the thumb of a more sinister vampire master. Although the authors evoke particulars of Bram Stoker's Victorian vampire classic, their portrayal of Ellen as a sympathetic victim is decidedly modern. In an author's note, Stoker, the great-grandnephew of Bram, explores gaps in the fossil record of Dracula's genesis to explain the direction his own Dracula-infused collaboration took. Bram Stoker fans and scholars will find this a satisfying exploration of his legacy.
