I am a massive Dracula fan and really didn't know where JD Barker was going to go with this, but as I'm also a huge JD Barker fan, I needn't have worried.

Creepy. Rats. Morgues. Fascinating. And, for me, hugely believable. This was a joy from start to finish.

Highly recommended

As a HUGE fan of Bram Stoker's Dracula I was sceptical about Dracul for fear that it would be cashing in on the original and offering little of value. I was wrong. Dacre Stoker and JD Barker have created a story which pays homage to the original and follows the conventions of the vampire tradition yet stands on its own merits. The decision to focus on Bram Stoker's insistence that his tale was real, and to place Bram and his siblings as central characters is genius. I liked the nods to the original, such as presenting the text as an amalgamation of journal entries and letters by various narrators. The characters are believable, the plot rattles along at a great rate, the Undead are terrifying with a particularly nerve-shredding scene involving rats in the morgue. It is dark and gothic and eerie. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

And to think that I nearly gave up on this to begin with! At about 20% in, it just didn't seem to be drawing me in at all. So how pleased am I that I persevered?!!

This is a prequel to Bram Stokers Dracula, and is the story of Bram himself. It postulates that Dracula and vampires really do exist, Bram and his family had an intimate relationship with one (not like THAT!), and Dracula was written as a warning about the Undead. Well, I clearly don't know what to believe now!

The language used in this novel is a little more up to date than Bram Stokers original: it's written for the modern reader (as Bram's was at the time, I suppose), and is consequently much easier to read. This book is supposedly based on notes that Bram left behind - whether they were ideas for another book, or they were 'actual occurrences', we'll never really know.

Bram and his family are followed from Bram's early childhood, up until well after their encounter with Dracul. It's exciting, there's loads of action, and I had some serious worries about Bram's siblings! There's loads of historical detail (potato famine in Ireland, disease, poverty) which I rather enjoyed. But it's the encounters with the vampires that I really loved. There's always going to be someone that makes the comparison to 'that' vampire series, and so I'll be the one. There IS NO comparison. These aren't nicey-nicey vampires who sparkle. These are largely speaking, evil, dark-magic-using, killing machines. Much more fun.

I think this is probably going to be a series. Which I will obviously be reading. Obviously.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book.

You know about Dracula.

But what about Bram Stoker's own story?

1868. Bram Stoker, barricaded in an abbey, is desperately trying to fight off evil with all means available to him. But as the darkness surrounds him, he knows time is running out. All he can do is leave a detailed documentation of his life. Where did it all began? What went wrong?

And it all started with his childhood.

Based on the original notes that Bram Stoker left behind, Dracul is a dark, Gothic tale revolving around Dracula's author. Written in a similar style to that of the original Dracula, the book imagines a very strange childhood for young Bram, with lots of shadows lurching in the corners of his life.

Dracul has a very interesting concept. However, the narrative felt lacking at time, as if the author regarded the writing style as more important than the actual essence of the plot. Although the story was very interesting, it felt slow-paced at times. In fact, there were instances when I, as a reader felt almost disconnected to the story.

Nevertheless, Dracul has a fascinating concept, which - with a little more editing down- could have become an even more compelling story. This book will definitely appeal to the fans of Gothic horror. Anyone obsessed with Stoker's Dracula should also give it a try.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my copy.

Unfortunately I got about half way through this title and lost interest. It wasn't as scary as I had expected and while the historical aspects were interesting they contributed to making the story feel slow.

However, I did find the author's notes at the end of the book very interesting.

For now I have shelved this title and will attempt to revisit it again in the future.

Firstly, thanks to NetGalley for a free ARC in return for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book! To know that a descendent of Bram Stoker was involved with this story is amazing in itself. Pair him with J.D. Barker, an author I have been dying to read, and this is a match made in heaven (or is it hell?).

The style if this book is very interesting. This is a prequel to Bram Stoker's Dracula, using Bram and the Stoker family as the primary characters. The story develops in the form of journal entries from the point of view of each of the family members, as well as other key character, including a character who may be the real person behind the Van Helsing persona. But don't let that put you off. The way each entry ties in with each other, slowly revealing events and adding depth and context to these events, is amazing!

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in vampire, occult, supernatural, horror or suspense stories, as it does span many of these genres.

Look out for these two writers - I personally cannot wait to read more from them

What a perfect choice this book was to read on Halloween! Delightfully spooky, frequently gruesome and in parts really scary!

Amazingly Dracul is a prequel to the famous Dracula and as such it is perfect. It tells of the young Bram Stoker and his siblings growing up and the impact that their rather unusual nanny has on their young lives. Bram in particular has a very close relationship with her and this leads to events which culminate in their meeting with Dracula. Along the way there are deaths, graveyard scenes, amputated limbs and people consuming live mice among other gory details. As I said , perfect reading for Halloween.

I found this book to be well written and intriguing in its ideas. It was well paced and sometimes very tense. Who would not be a little nervous when there is a vampire outside causing deadly snakes to multiply and crawl in through your windows. Very enjoyable indeed and highly recommended:)

Actal rating 4.5/5 stars.

Dracul is penned as a prequel of sorts to the infamous horror classic, Dracula. This fictional account of Bram Stoker's younger years was purged directly from his personal journals yet given a chilling, supernatural twist. Whilst not strictly adhering to the realistic, this gives the Gothic backstory to how this infamous horror classic could possibly have came to be.

The story is told through a back-and-forth timeline. The first is of Bram as a sick and often bed-ridden child. His only visitors are his mother, his sister, and the sinister figure of his nanny who has dark secrets only he is privy to. The latter segments feature a fully-grown Bram, haunted by a malevolent figure separated from him by only a locked door. With only his old journals to distract himself he journeys back to his childhood and relives, along with the reader, the figure that stalked his younger years.

Whilst not a terrifying read, this managed to accurately recreate the chilling atmosphere of Bram Stoker's original tale. The same Gothic miasma descended over all proceedings and the same lilting style of prose was used in which to relay the story. I really appreciated how Dacre managed to emulate the style of his great-grand uncle's writing and how this truly felt like it was penned by the same person.

*** Disclosure - I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review ***

This book stays true to the format of Stoker's Dracula, being written in the form of a compilation of diary entries, letters and newspaper reports. This allows some of the main characters to embed their own voice and to give their view of events, the narratives interweaved to give a good, suspenseful story.

Bram Stoker was not well as a child, pretty much bed-bound until the age of 7. Then he suddenly recovered and went on to become a successful athlete and University graduate. This book takes that life story and layers on a brilliant prequel to Dracula, suggesting that vampires very much impacted on Stoker's life and he himself did battle with Count Vlad.

Excellent, atmospheric story with plenty of suspense and action, and a few twists and turns along the way. A perfect read for this time of year.

I was really excited to read this book, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations. It is a good book, but I found the pacing to be too slow, for the most part. Also the switching between present and past for most of the book didn't really work that well for me, and the switching of viewpoints at other stages sometimes interrupted the flow. It's a story that would have been better presented if it were shorter. It took me a long time to read, mostly because the slow pace stopped me from feeling compelled to keep going for more than half an hour at a time. I also found the ending to be somewhat flat after a final escalation of action.
In terms of content, it does very much feel appropriate for the period in which it's set. It is worth reading if you like vampire stories, nicely atmospheric and Gothic. Some readers will absolutely love this, but it just didn't manage, sadly, to hook me.

I would say that DRACUL is a good book, but ultimately one that was just a bit too long. And, I say that regrettable because of the idea of the book, to link the Dracula myth with Bram Stoker's own life is marvelous and I quite enjoyed the story. Especially the first part with the creepy nanny. I also came to like Bram's brave and gutsy sister Matilda very much. What for me sadly just didn't work was the pacing. It's a thick book, 500 pages and I just felt that my interested in the story went up and down as the story progressed. Some parts really interesting, other parts, well I lost the focus now and then. On the plus side, the ending is quite good and the story had a lovely gothic atmosphere. Also, I did, however, quite enjoyed the author's notes at the end of the book. Fascinating reading.

So, would I recommend this book? Yes, definitely. The story is interesting and you will like it especially if you have a burning obsession with everything concerning the Dracula myth. Confession, the original Dracula book by Bram Stoker was never a favorite of mine so perhaps it's not that odd that I did not totally love this book.

I'm afraid I abandoned this one at 44%. The writing is fine, but the story is dragged out beyond all possibility of maintaining any kind of tension. It starts off well with the child Bram and his mysterious nanny, but very quickly descends into endless repetitiveness, especially the "Now" sections which are clearly going to be dragged out pointlessly for the entire book. In short, I'm finding it boring, to the point where my reluctance to pick it up has grown so much it has finally defeated me. Another of the many contemporary books that are far too long for their content, seriously over-padded.

For the quality of the writing and the basic idea, it probably deserves three stars, but since it has failed to hold my attention the only realistic rating I can give it is one star.

This book is allegedly based on the journals and letters of Bram Stoker himself and his older siblings, Matilda and Thornley, and it is co-written by an actual descendant of the family.

A large part of the story is told in alternating timelines. In one Bram is a young man in his early 20s. It is nighttime and Bram is inside a crumbling tower with crosses and mirrors nailed to the inner walls, fighting to keep a terrifying monster locked inside a room. At the same time there are other horrors outside, intent on getting in to the tower. Then we meet Bram as a sickly child, bedridden for much of his early life due to his illness. One particular night, aged 7 years, Bram is at death's door. Although his Doctor uncle is called upon to help it is the childrens mysterious Nanny, Ellen Crone, who appears to miraculously bring Bram back from the brink. Shortly afterwards Ellen disappears in very strange circumstances. Bram and his sister fear that something terrible has befallen their beloved Nanny and they worry that they will never see her again. Then the story picks up some fourteen years later and it seems that Ellen may not have completely left the Stoker family after all.

I really enjoyed this novel, more than the original Dracula story in fact. A wonderfully chilling and atmospheric book, with a heartbreaking love story at its core, that is a worthy prequel to the original classic.

EDIT. I have just treated myself and a couple of friends to the lovely hardback.

4.5 of 5 stars
https://lynns-books.com/2018/10/22/dracul-by-dacre-stoker-j-d-barker-spooktasticreads/
Dracul is described as a prequel to Bram Stoker’s Dracula and so of course I was intrigued, in fact no, I wasn’t intrigued – I simply had to read it, it’s really that simple. I’ve read Dacre Stoker before (his sequel to Dracula) and whilst that book was an okay read for me it didn’t really capture my attention the way this one did. This one hooked me from the get go.

So, where to start. Well, I confess that thinking of a prequel I had some wild notions of a story about Dracula himself and his earlier life. Of course, if I’d read the description I would have been disabused of that foolish notion but, sometimes, going into a book with little idea of what to expect or even being on the wrong tack entirely can work out incredibly well as I proved to myself here. That being said, prequel? I’m not sure I would call this a prequel. I don’t know how to describe it really. Certainly this involves some intriguing storytelling, particularly as it uses Bram himself as one of the main characters, but it’s almost as though this is the ‘real’ story. Not a retelling, not a prequel, but ‘dear reader this is what actually happened’! (Cue ominous thunderstorm and goose bumps). There are recognisable threads throughout that any Dracula lover will easily pick up upon, and I’m fairly certain I will have missed some of the nods contained herein – but don’t worry overly about that. Focus on the story itself, I really do think this is a wonderful creation and I liked it a lot more than I ever anticipated or hoped.

The story is told, similar to the original, in an epistolary format – which is just something that I really enjoy – and jumps back and forth between two timelines – another aspect of storytelling that I also really enjoy.

One aspect of the story takes us back to a young Bram, living in Ireland with his family and their rather mysterious Nanny, Ellen Crone. I absolutely loved this storyline and thought it was not only an ingenious idea to use but also compelling to read and fascinating. I could quite easily read a piece of nonfiction about Bram Stoker on the strength of this book. Bram was a sickly child and on one occasion was not only knocking on Death’s door but had taken a step over the threshold. Bram and his sister share an easy going camaraderie getting into and out of trouble together and on one particular dark night, their curiosity having got the better of them, they follow their Nanny as she ventures out of an evening. Of course, the two get much more than they bargained for, they receive a thoroughly good scare but their escapade also results in their beloved Nanny leaving them without a word. They’re both bereft and certainly Bram’s sister never really gets over the loss.

The other storyline takes us to an adult Bram. The first few chapters see him enclosed in a room within what appears to be a castle. A locked door stands as the only protection between him and what lies contained within but his defences are starting to crumble and things look desperate. These scenes are equally gripping, so much so that I almost resented being pulled away – but, bear with, all good things to those who wait after all.

I don’t really want to delve too deeply into the plot, I felt my enjoyment of this book stemmed from not only the plot and the writing but also the lack of knowledge going into the read.

The writing is really good. I didn’t experience any lulls or periods where my attention roamed. The combination of the two timelines was strangely addictive and in fact, when they eventually conspired to collide I almost missed the jumping back and forth and the suspense created and yet conversely, at the same time, I thought the timing was perfect. I was really impressed at the point at which the story combines. For me, the original story has an element of breakneck speed, rushing to the conclusion towards the final chapters and this story is perfectly timed in much the same way. Then there are all the little instances that you’ll pick up as you read that relate to the original story but told differently here. I wish I could be more specific. Twists and turns.

The characters are well drawn. Bram, his brother and sister all share chapters. We meet an early Van Helsing which was such a surprise and so good but, the absolute star of the show is the nanny. There are moments of scary here without doubt and yet at the same time the conundrum of the children really caring for her and their feelings being reciprocated.

I’m not sure what else I can really elaborate on. The vampire elements and the myth are all here but with slight twists. We have the inclusion of a Dearg-Due – you’ll have to read it if you want to find out more about that particular myth. There is a love story running through the novel but not the one I expected. We have minions, castles, rats, snakes, asylums and ships at sail. We travel to Scarborough and the Abbey – before it was reduced to ruins. There is such a lot here to delight readers – not just even with the original Dracula but with other fiction of the era – I definitely had a Wilkie Collins feel going on at one point for example.

And, the cherry on top of the icing is that this is told as though it’s a true story – using original notes from Bram’s earlier creation. Trying to discern the fact from the fiction and also catching storylines and having a lightbulb moment were all part of the experience and I just loved it.

Gushing over, I did have a couple of minor criticisms but nothing that spoiled the read. The final plot points felt a little sensational but I won’t go into why and there was also a feeling of reading certain scenes that feel like they’ve been written either with potential movie prospects in mind – or feel like scenes from a movie you’ve watched. But, in fairness, I’ve seen so many vampire movies (and read so many books) that really I think any author would be hard pressed to avoid that feeling.

Overall this was totally gripping. I thought it was clever, well written, tense, evocative and definitely scary when and where it needed to be. And, it’s made me want to go and read about Bram Stoker so it’s a double win.

I think regardless of whether you’ve read the original or not – you should give this a go. In fact it would be really interesting to see how those who aren’t familiar with the original get on with this story.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

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.

When it comes to the monster, the creatures that managed to burrow into society’s collective psyche, there can be few more enduring than the vampire. An elegant apex predator that sits higher on the food chain than us, and is sustained by the blood that runs in our veins. Of all the myths that surround these undead parasites, Dracula is hands down the most famous. The new novel Dracul by Dacre Stoker* and J D Barker takes a different approach to the story of everyone’s favourite bloodsucker. The premise is simple – what if the infamous Count and Bram Stoker were more directly connected than anyone ever suspected. I’ll admit that when I first heard about this novel, I assumed it was going to be a straight prequel to Dracula.Turns out I was wrong, it is an entirely different beast. I think Dracul could actually be far better described as the genesis of the Dracula myth.

How has this been achieved? Well, the authors have been delightfully sneaky. Their narrative mixes key factual elements from Bram’s early life with their own plot. For example, a quick search on Wikipedia confirms that Bram was bedridden at a young age. I’m a sucker for this sort of detail. I always appreciate fiction that uses information this way, taking facts and using them as the ideal jumping off point to a fictional tale. It feels like it adds an extra air of authenticity to proceedings.

The story alternates between two different time periods; the first follows Bram and his siblings while they are young, the latter when they have grown up. One of the things I particularly like is how the older version of Bram is portrayed. There is a damaged quality to the man. His earlier encounters with Ellen Crone have marked him, both physically and psychologically. Part of Bram will always be in thrall to this mysterious woman, and when called he is all but powerless to resist. It’s fascinating to watch how this internal battle plays out against the rest of the plot.

I also really enjoyed how the relationship between Matilda Stoker and Ellen was handled. Years after Ellen disappears from the Stoker’s lives, Matilda still writes letters to Ellen imagining that they are still in contact. Matilda is, in her own way, just as obsessed with Ellen as her brother is. The circumstances that surround Ellen’s disappearance still gnaw away. As a reader, we get real insight into just how much Ellen Crone impacted all the Stokers.

The other character who I imagine I am more or less obliged to mention is the novel’s title character. There is little doubt that Dracul’s presence is felt throughout. Elusive, and when he does appear, often enigmatic. Dracul’s disdain for humanity feels almost palpable. He views us as little more than cattle. Though he may appear in the form of a civilised gentleman, you know that Dracul is doing little to contain his rage. His blood-lust drives him in all things. If Dracul wants something, or someone, he takes it. Consequences are for mere mortals to worry about. This makes for the perfect villain, a creature that could almost be human but is entirely driven by their basis instincts. The need to overpower, to control and to feed is everything.

There are also a handful of deliciously gory moments. I’m not going to mention any directly, for fear of spoilers. Suffice to say they did make me go “Eeeeeeuuuuwww” on more than one occasion. Bugs, body horror, and bloodletting are always a winner in my book.

On a side note, I’ve always been insanely curious about how the collaborative process works when a novel is written by two authors. In this instance everything appears to flow so seamlessly I’d be hard pressed to tell you who is responsible for individual elements of the tale.

Dracul starts slowly but gathers pace with each passing chapter. Viewed in isolation, it is a successful reimaging of the vampire myth origin. Where it really succeeds however, is in paying reverential homage to its literary forebear. If you read Dracul and then Dracula, the lines between fact and fiction are going to blur together even further. I suspect it would make for a truly unique experience.

When it comes to a musical accompaniment for this novel, I nearly went for the gothic exuberance of Dracula by Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet. After much thought however, I decided the soundtrack to The Woman in Black by Marco Beltrami was more appropriate. I think it better captures some of the subtler elements of the story.

Dracul is published by Bantam Press and is available now.

*You may have spotted a potential familial link here. You’d be right. Dacre Stoker is the great grandnephew of a certain Irish author who may have been mentioned elsewhere in this review.

"You've been trying to speak to a box of body parts? This is preposterous!"

Um, yeah! And it's not the only thing that's decidedly hokey about this entertaining Dracula romp: on the positive side, this retells the story casting Bram Stoker's actual family as the characters, and there are some genuinely creepy moment (the snakes!).

On the other hand, though, this is s-l-o-w with lots of rambling and repetition: I can see it's hard to re-open the vampire trope in the wake of tweeny sparkly vamps and their sexy grown-up counterparts (True Blood, say) but it's hard to go through all those pages of mysterious puncture wounds, healing youthful bodies and mysterious movements before the V-word is even mentioned without muttering 'come on, get on with it - we *know* what the problem is!"

I'd also say that where Stoker's original is multilayered enough to appear on Victorian literature university modules (the alien and othered outsider, female sexuality and gender, narratology), this version is pure escapism. While it duplicates the journal entries method of story-telling in part, it doesn't seem to understand the literary value of this mode to the tale: so instead of dramatising immediacy and limited knowledge and shifting PoVs, it just continues the same story switching superficially between, say, Bram's journal and that of his brother: one picks up precisely where the other ended and the voice is exactly the same - there would be no impact if the whole thing had been told via a single narrator, nothing would be lost or added which certainly isn't the case for the original.

Ok, I'm perhaps over-thinking: ultimately this is a fun homage to a classic novel - just manage your expectations going into it.

An intriguing gothic horror book, told from the point of view of several members of the Stoker family, including Bram, as well as his sister and brother. It tells the tale of Bram's childhood, where he was very sickly, on the verge of death, through to his adulthood. Bram had a nanny named Ellen when he was a boy, she seemed a bit of a creepy character, disappearing for days at a time, and sleeping in a box of dirt. Yet she seems to have healed Bram's ailments when the doctors of the time couldn't. Bram and his sister followed Ellen at one stage, just after he got well again, just to find a box in a tower of a ruined castle, containing a severed arm, among other things. They then watch Ellen disappear into a bog! Ellen then disappears from the children's lives, just to re-appear years later to them, however, she doesn't seemed to have aged a day!
I found this book to hold much interest. It didn't go too hard core into the horror, concentrating more on the psychological aspect, but it hooks you in. It slowly reveals the story of Bram and how he comes across the famous Dracul, or Dracula. It is fiction, but told in biographical style, through journals and letters. The author, Dacre Stoker, is the great-grandnephew of Bram.This chilling tale has much to recommend it.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The comparisons and connections between Dracul and Bram Stoker’s Dracula are inevitable and unavoidable. After all, this is the story of Bram Stoker’s early life, his family and what may have been the catalyst for his classic vampire story. Dracula has become the most popular monster figure ever, spawning a ubiquitous vampire theme across multiple genres. In Bram’s life, the second half of the 19th century, vampires were seen as pure monsters, whereas nowadays, we have them appearing as charismatic, powerful, intelligent, loyal and talented exemplars of human desire. We also see them as portrayed as pure ruthless and destructive evil.

Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker treat us to a wonderful dramatic spine-chilling account of Bram Stoker’s early life, which is packed full of suspense and horror to rival the Dracula story itself, and considered a prequel. The story structure is very similar to Dracula, using an epistolary form, but over 2 time periods, the now of Bram at 21 years of age, and the past accounts of the Stoker siblings laid out in letters and journals from Bram and others including his sister Matilda and brother Thornley. The story combines factual details with fictional creativity in such a seamless manner that we cannot tell which elements are which. It all blends to accomplish a plot that adds unique elements and has us living a nightmare where our imagination challenges our fundamental beliefs. Our frail grip on reality slips as the unimaginable seems possible. The control in the writing to hold together the various threads and narrative elements is brilliant. Sometimes the pace slacks and this is especially frustrating during the transition from one journal account to another.

The Bram of now sits in a room where we can feel the palpable fear and fatigue as he struggles to get through a night with a powerful monster that has multiple nefarious tricks and deceptions, locked behind a reinforced door. A door that is reinforced with locks, bolts, holy water, roses, and Holy Communion wafer paste.

Reconstructing Bram’s history from his journals and letters from Matilda, tell of the nanny, Ellen Crone. A mysterious and miraculous saviour of Bram on a number of occasions.

“It is clear he was meant to die as a child, yet his alliance with this unholy creature has garnered him more years; a deal with the Devil, possibly worse, if such a thing is imaginable.”

When Bram and Matilda investigate her room and follow her into the countryside, they confirm her to be a preternatural being (in Irish folklore called a Dearg-Due). Even with the supernatural threat she carries, they have developed a caring relationship with her, especially Bram who has a deep extrasensory connection. The authors have decidedly followed the modern acceptance that not all monsters should be totally evil and perhaps there is a watchful connection with her.

The birth and sickly youth of Bram, an early precarious climb up a castle tower, several isolated engagements, and the monster behind the door, convey an ever-present atmosphere of impending trauma. The sense of a precipice are prevailing themes throughout the story and are used masterfully to maintain a chilling suspense. The tone gets darker and more frightening in the second half of the book when more is revealed.

This is a standalone book made all the more captivating with its connections to the author of Dracula. It does not feel like Dacre took advantage of his ancestral connection but rather added authenticity to a story that expertly weaves fact with fiction, to create a novel that is thoroughly engrossing and full of horror, evil, fear and trepidation. How secure will you feel walking alone at night after reading this?

I would highly recommend this book and I would like to thank Random House UK, Transworld Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC version of the book in return for an honest review.

What an inspired time to publish a prequel to Dracula, the nights are drawing in and we are suitably on our way towards both Halloween and Christmas. I couldn't have thought up a better creative partnership if I'd tried - J.D. Barker's two novels were some of my favourite reads in the past few years. He certainly knows how to pen a compelling book, and Dacre Stoker, great-grandnephew of Bram, has input here too. Based on the journals and letters of Bram himself as well as his older siblings, Matilda and Thornley, it allows their voices to feed into the story despite having been dead for over a century.

Dracul not only charts the creation of Bram Stoker's masterpiece but it also includes fictional representations of the author himself and his meetings with the supernatural. Of course, as with all books that are heavily based around vampires, in order to enjoy it, you are required to have a healthy suspension of disbelief. I began the novel thinking that it was unlikely to be as utterly engrossing and unputdownable as Dracula was, but I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself reading way past my bedtime! With a dual timeline that features both Bram in his 20s and Bram as a sickly and bedridden child, there is plenty to get your teeth into here.

Exquisitely written, captivating and with chills, thrills and spills aplenty to get the hairs on the back of your neck standing up, this is a fantastic read. The tone, language and intense atmospherics give this the same authentic feel as the original, classic Dracula. Gripping and full of atmosphere, this is not to be missed if you appreciate tightly woven, Gothic tales.

Many thanks to Bantam Press for an ARC. I was not required to post a review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Dacre Stoker and J.D Barker explore the "alleged origins" of Bram Stoker's Dracula in this stunning prequel that tells the fictional story of Bram's early life and his own dealings with the undead.
A novel said to be inspired by Bram's own extensive notes and texts, as well as family interviews, this is far from a 'cash grab' on a popular property.
Dacre Stoker has already proved apt at striking a respectful balance between honouring the source material and creating something new and unique with the novel Dracula: The Un-Dead.
But Dracul is a far superior book.
Stoker and his writing partner have created a unique and tense horror tale that captures the tone and language of the Dracula universe but also stands on its own feet.
It's a story that's impossible to put down and one that's sure to please purists while bringing a whole new audience to one of horror's great classic stories.