Although I found the book to be a slow start, the story line picked up in time and was well developing. The details in the character background as well written.

The Book of Renfield serves as a perfect companion to Dracula. I like how the writing feels extremely similar. While there is a bit of retelling through the eyes of John Seward, the focus is more on an oral history of Renfield's life. Through captivating storytelling, Renfield is beautifully portrayed as a tragic hero. The questions of how Dracula becomes Renfield's 'lord and master' are finally explained and if there was any benefit to Renfield from the association.
Would recommend to fans of Dracula and gothic literature in general.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for an advance ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Although I was intrigued at the beginning, the author's style didn't captivate me as I expected. It took me forever to read the first few chapters, and when I thought things got more interesting, learning more about Renfield's past, I found the pace too slow, bordering tedious. I'm sure other readers will enjoy it, but it wasn't for me.

Thank you to the Publishers Riverdale Avenue Books and to NetGalley for the read about Renfield and his tragic past.

This one is creepy crawly scary not overtly so. If you’re a big Dracula fan this is a book for you. Loved the backstory and the different dialogue

Did kind of feel long but I was in the midst of a novella phase so could just be me.

3/5 ⭐️

So I watched the movie Renfield the beginning of this year and I absolutely loved it and then I came across this book so I had to request it and I’m so glad I did this. This is a beautifully written, Suffolk Gothic and I’m just obsessed and you will be too.

I love Dracula, and this book not only evoked the same style and mood as the original, it also answered several questions I had and even some questions I didn't realize I had. I highly recommend this to others who enjoy traditional horror.
Thanks to NetGalley and to the author for letting me read this fantastic story

I'm a fan of Dracula the novel as well as the popular movie rendition of it staring Winona, Keanu, Anthony.
This book goes quite well with those two so if you enjoyed them you will definitely like this book of Renfield.
The book of Renfield is exactly that - the life of Renfield according to his own confessional account as told to Dr. Seward during his time in the asylum. It also contains the Doctors version of the story from his notes. I really enjoyed learning of Renfield's entire upbringing before his beginnings with the Count. It gives so much detail into the mind of this poor soul and what he was dealt with in life and his wants to just be loved. This is 75% about Renfield's life and Dr. Seward's relationship with his patient. The other 25 involves the other characters that are well known already and their interactions with Renfield and the Dr.
I fully recommend this book and plan to find a physical copy to put alongside my Dracula book. If you really like Dracula I suggest you give this one a read. It's worthy of the 5 stars.
I'd like to thank the Author for this fascinating tale. The publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a ebook arc.

I’m like a lot of other reviewers, as I’m obsessed with the Dracula story and will read just about any spin off book. I had a hard time finishing this one though. It just didn’t grab my interest. It also felt like it took a loooong time describing his early years, then raced over his later years with really improbable events.

I did like the idea of melding the new story with the previously published diaries. I also liked the forward as a call back to the old tradition of claiming your book is papers you found/an ancestor’s journal. Really ties it in to the Victorian time.

In the end, the book left a lot of questions—more than it answered. Why was Renfield chosen in the first place? Who exactly was Milady? But I guess that also fits in with all the plot holes and questions the original left!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my review.

This book weaves text from the original Dracula in with original notes by Doctor Seward and Renfield telling the story of his own life and how he became a servant of the vampire. I picked it up after watching the recent movie, which combines characters from the original book (which I haven't reread in decades)...so I was reading about the wrong Renfield, if that makes any sense at all. It was an enjoyable read for the most part, but some sections absolutely dragged and the introduction and the author's notes at the end were downright tiresome. I'm apparently not enough of a Dracula fan to thoroughly enjoy this.

Whoever said this was alone to Bram Stokers writing was absolutely right. The characters, plot, and setting kept me intrigued. Thank for for the opportunity to review.

Any book about Dracula I am going to love. And this one was no exception. This one was great. I don’t understand why there isn’t more

A wonderful addition to the vampire literary canon and to the Dracula mythos. I read this when it first came out in 2005 and my opinion hasn’t changed a bit. It’s a wonderful novel about regular people facing an unimaginable horror. Highly recommended.

The Book of Renfield is a collection of the long-lost private diaries, professional journals, and wax-cylinder recordings that comprise Dr. Seward's obsessive study of Renfield.

This was really interesting. I'm a huge Dracula fan and I really like what this brought to the mythos.

Creepy, this book scuttles up your spine and right into the gray matter of your brain. Once it latches on you can't stop reading. As a fan of horror, especially the older horror, I can say that this easily will become a favorite of many who love the genre. Gothic and folklorish with a clever twisting like a knife to the gut. Loved it!

I really enjoyed this story of Renfield which gives life to an age-old character many found interesting and mysterious. A supporting character rarely gets this much attention in any story, but sometimes, one will peek out of the tale and stay within our thoughts long after “the end.”

The author did a fantastic job of giving us a character who starts off weak and pitiful, who builds himself into something larger but reminds us when we reach too far for the wrong reasons without healing the demon festering for attention, we only nurture a beast slithering in the waters of our psyche.

There were some areas that seemed to drag a little slower but overall, this is a beautifully crafted story matching the style of the original Dracula with painstaking accuracy and attention to detail. I’m excited and proud to add it on the shelf beside Bram Stoker.

This book was fantastic! I did not want it to end, and it took me completely into Stoker’s world. Tim Lucas brought Renfield to life with his storytelling. Thank you!

Bram Stoker's Dracula was the first horror that I read. I have always loved the story. This book was written in the same "old world" style. I felt transported back to Dr. Seward's Carfax Asylum. This book contains the sessions, notes and diaries of Renfield and Seward during that time. There are also brief appearances of other beloved characters.
I gave the book 4 stars because the story rambled at times. It expanded my perception of Dracula, which I loved, through Renfield's interpretation of his dark descent. (There were also a few fables mentioned that I now want to read.)

Thank you NetGalley and Riverdale Avenue Books for a copy of this novel.

Also posted on Instagram and Goodreads, links included.

A fun and spooky read that's great for the Halloween season. The author has a great writing voice that is very easy to get attached to. The story never got boring and I found myself always wanting to turn the next page.

Lucas apes Stoker’s style pretty well (I’ll forgive the odd Americanism because frankly, it’s my problem for reading so much 19th C lit). And to give this book its due, it’s very difficult to do something new as a direct spin off of that much beloved classic, Dracula, because if ever there was a story that has been done over and over again, that would be the one. I’m obviously a fan of the original and can’t pass up a supplementary volume, so when something doesn’t quite hit, it’s on me. In the original, Jack Seward is just an ok character as far as I’m concerned so it was a delight to find that Lucas’ treatment of him re-engaged my interest. And perhaps it’s because Seward isn’t standing next to so many much more interesting characters. I genuinely devoured Jack’s segments with great enjoyment. Where the book fell down for me, was Renfield’s chapters. I got halfway through the book and realised that I wasn’t interested in Renfield’s story at all. He is a pitiable creature in Dracula but here he was just dull. I really didn’t care. Unfortunately since the book focuses on his story, that did put a damper on my enjoyment. I had minor niggles like Mina being thoroughly sidelined and Jonathan Harker somehow being shown to be a far stronger character than he ever was in Dracula (seriously, how does anyone read him that way? He’s a nonce). But my real issue was that I didn’t find the actual central plot interesting and only wanted to read the framing narrative. Clearly that’s a me problem so don’t be put off if you’re a Dracula fan, but in the end this just didn’t really land for me.

As a devoted Dracula fan, I approached this book with a mix of excitement and caution, as it was written more than 200 years after the events, from the perspective of R.M. Renfield, one of my favorite supporting characters. Having the privilege of an advance viewing, I immersed myself in the world skillfully brought back to life by Tim Lucas. I was doubly thrilled to also experience the perspective of Doctor Jack Seward, whom I've always believed to be underrated and misunderstood.

Lucas masterfully captures the depth of emotion present in the original Dracula, and his writing flows with such finesse that it might have given Stoker himself cause for concern about his own work being overshadowed. The sections written in Doctor Seward's voice are so eloquent and reflective of the scientific mentality of the time that one might easily believe they were reading a firsthand account. Seward's character is expanded and given the spotlight he rightly deserves, correcting what I felt was a slight from Stoker.

While Renfield's story veers away from what little we know about him from Dracula's text, Lucas offers a fresh and somewhat imaginative perspective on this character. Through his skilled writing, Renfield comes to life, and his interactions with Seward and unique personality make the events he recounts feel vivid and real. I appreciated that the book did not dwell excessively on rehashing Dracula, as such retrospectives often tend to do, but rather focused on giving depth to the characters' backgrounds.