Book Review : Dracula In Love

Dracula in Love by Karen Essex has been touted in many book reviews as “Twilight for grownups”. I can see a few similarities, I guess. Yes, there is a vampire. Yes, there is a love story. But that’s where the resemblance ended for me. Hang on to your Team Edward novelty baseball hats, because this ain’t your teenager’s vampire novel.
     This book is dark. It’s mysterious. It’s sensual. This is a real gothic novel, the way they are supposed to be written. You want to go wandering through mist filled, centuries old cemeteries in the dead of night? How does a visit to a Victorian “insane” asylum sound? Dracula in Love has it all, and then some.
     Karen Essex has taken the characters from Bram Stoker’s classic novel and given them quite an imaginative back story. In the original, Mina Murray is an innocent bystander in an act of revenge between the count and his lawyer, Jonathan Harker. But in Essex’s retelling of the tale, Mina may not be such a innocent victim. She is something else entirely, something she herself has tried to ignore her entire life .As a child, she learned to hide her strange abilities and talents in exchange for a calm, normal life. She dreamed of a beautiful wedding, a doting husband and house full of children. However, nightly visions, sometimes horrific and other times extremely erotic, have her confused and scared. Who is this creature she encounters in her dreams? She finds herself drawn to him in ways she has never experienced, or at least, in ways she cannot fully explain. Yet, he appears to posses knowledge of her every thought, her every desire. The two souls are somehow connected in a way mere mortals could never fully comprehend.
     I enjoyed this novel so much. Essex is an amazingly talented author, giving new life to these classic characters. She deftly intertwines the histories of Mina and the Count into the original story without missing a beat. The blending is flawless. In some instances, when an author attempts to retell a classic tale one of two things tend to happen. One, the older story becomes somewhat forgotten, it’s charm is lost when it’s replaced with a shinier new version. Two, the new version tends to feel, for lack of a better word, stolen. You find yourself wondering why the author even attempted to make these characters her own. They are someone else’s imaginings and they just don’t come to life in the hands of another writer. However, Dracula in Love did not leave me feeling as if Mina Murray was simply a borrowed character. I felt as if she blossomed beautifully under Essex’s care. I also do not feel as if Stoker’s original story is overshadowed by this new novel. I actually find myself tempted to read it again!
     Dracula in Love is a beautifully writtten and wildly addictive novel. I suggest it to anyone, whether you prefer your vampires sparkly and melodramatic or dark and wildly sensuous. But really, when you look at it that way , is there really a choice?