I'm happy to say that she didn't disappoint me, and in fact exceeded my expectations. As an old friend once said, 'if it ain't broke,' but I jumped at the chance to review Karen Essex's DRACULA IN LOVE because I'm a huge fan of her previous books. So I'm pretty particular about other adaptations of the book.

My favorite will always be Frank Langella in DRACULA based on the Balderston and Deane play. Something about him draining the nasty syphilitic blood and replacing it with his blood). And I've seen pretty much every adaptation known to man including the last BBC miniseries that had Dracula as a cure for syphilis (don't ask, it didn't make sense to me either. What this flesh and blood woman has to say is more sensual, more devious, and more enthralling than the Victorians could have expressed or perhaps even have imagined.I have been a fan of Bram Stoker's DRACULA, ever since I first read the book in high school. Now, for the first time, the truth of Mina's personal voyage, and of vampirism itself, is revealed. Time falls away as she is swept into a mythical journey far beyond mortal comprehension, where she must finally make the decision she has been avoiding for almost a millennium.īram Stoker's classic novel offered one side of the story, in which Mina had no past and bore no responsibility for the unfolding events.

Mina's version of this gothic vampire tale is a visceral journey into Victorian England's dimly lit bedrooms, mist-filled cemeteries, and asylum chambers, revealing the dark secrets and mysteries locked within. In this wonderfully transporting novel, award-winning author Karen Essex turns a timeless classic inside out, spinning a haunting, erotic, and suspenseful story of eternal love and possession.įrom the shadowy banks of the river Thames to the wild and windswept Yorkshire coast, Dracula's eternal muse, Mina Murray, vividly recounts the intimate details of what really transpired between her and the Count-the joys and terrors of a passionate affair that has linked them through the centuries, and her rebellion against her own frightening preternatural powers.

Dracula in love karen essex