Review | Dracul by Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker

Bram Stoker spends his childhood confined to his bed, caught in a mysterious illness. The only person able to heal him is his nanny, Ellen Crone. But after strange deaths occur in Bram’s hometown, Ellen starts behaving bizarrely before disappearing altogether. Bram and his sister, Matilda, are the only ones who knows the truth about Nanny Ellen.

Decades later when Bram is 21, Matilda brings news of Ellen’s return. And their old nanny is not the only person from their past to come back into their lives. Soon, with the help of their brother Thornley, the Stokers realise they are facing an evil beyond imagination.

He has covered the walls with mirrors, nearly two dozen of them in all shapes and sizes, all he had. His tired face stares back at him a hundredfold as his image bounces from one looking glass to the next. Bram tries to look away, only to find himself peering back into the eyes of his own reflection, each face etched with lines belonging on a man much older than his twenty-one years.

I’m a huge fan of Bram Stoker’s Dracula so I was really looking forward to Dracul. I thought it’s pretty good! The three Stoker siblings, Bram, Matilda and Thornley are great together. The mystery behind Nanny Ellen is intriguing. There’s some creepy, gruesome scenes! While the storyline has similarities to Dracula I can see that the book tries to do something different by bringing in more “undead” characters into the picture. I liked how much the characters were in danger, and how there’s no easy solution to their problem.

That said, I thought the character Arminius Vambéry to be a poor imitation of Van Helsing. I also found the language to be anachronistic at times. Though this makes for an easier reading, it’s jarring to see the characters from 1800s communicating in a modern way.

While I appreciate that Dacre Stoker wants to showcase the missing pages from his great-grand uncle’s iconic work, I thought he and JD Barker missed the opportunity to write something truly freaky. It’s mentioned in the Author’s Notes that Bram Stoker initially wanted Dracula to be published as a nonfiction. Apparently this is because he thought vampires are real, or that the story of Count Dracul actually happened, or maybe he was just crazy? Unfortunately, Dracul doesn’t delve into Bram’s mental state. I thought there’s a potential to go deeper into his psyche beyond just the notes he left behind, the ones cut from Dracula‘s publication.

In the end, I wanted more exploration into the blurring of fact and fiction in Dracul rather than just a retelling of a vampire story. If a vampire story is all that you’re looking for though, you will enjoy this.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via Netgalley for review purposes.

About the authors: Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker

Photo by Tre Immagini