Dracula in Love

My review: Don’t waste your time. When I first came across Dracula in Love by Karen Essex via amazon.com book suggestion (I think), I was very excited to read a love story about Dracula from the female’s point of view. What I failed to realize was she was literally using Bram Stoker’s Dracula as background. I do not know his background. Despite feeling like I’m a vampire enthusiast, I’ve never wanted to read Dracula by Bram Stoker nor could I get into Francis Ford Coppola’s movie Dracula. (Keanu Reeves does not belong in time period pieces unless it’s directly related to Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.)

Now, this dilemma shouldn’t have been an issue. An excellent writer should have been able to tell her side of the story and make it feel like a complete story. Instead, I could literally feel moments when the author was nudging me in the ribs with her elbows saying “did you see what I did there?” No, not really. It was like reading a book drunk. I could understand but at the same time it was hazy. I could notice the moments that were significant to Bram Stoker’s Dracula but only after the fact or not why. I always felt out of the loop. Sometimes a book likes to leave you hanging for answers and that’s perfectly ok when that is how the author intended it. She wrote this story as if you were already familiar with Dracula and I suppose it’s my bad that I assumed I was. A good example of not knowing the background but having the story told right is Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Never once, did I feel out of the loop. I watched. I cried. I enjoyed. When I left the theater with friends who are more familiar with the religious background, they were pointing out references in the movie that I completely overlooked. But it didn’t make or break the movie. In Dracula in Love it was a deal breaker for me.

So, let’s pretend I can get over being out of the loop. Fine, I’m over it. Now, I have issues with just the plain fantasy in this story. The very reasons I love vampires (the seduction, the forbidden, the lust) just wasn’t happening in this story. Dracula doesn’t actually make an appearance until the last fourth of the book. Though he seems to be stalking her spiritually (among other things) from the start, it wasn’t as exciting without him actually being there. You weren’t sure how much was real or made-up by the character therefore didn’t fulfill the romance between the two. I felt the book really picked up in that last fourth of the book when he finally arrives but it quickly went south. I enjoyed their meeting and wanting to get acquainted with each other but it then turned into an overly long explanation on how things came to be. She introduced such a wild history of his creation that I just couldn’t believe and just didn’t care. Though she uses mythical creatures throughout the story, I would prefer they had nothing to do with Dracula. Can’t a girl just pretend he exists without having to know why?

When the story ends, it just doesn’t go where I wanted it to go. Perhaps had I watch or read the original I would not have been surprised. What is suppose to leave you with a loving story that is never-ending, just left me mad for wasting several hours on this book.