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Proto-paranormal romance more than a horror novel, focused on the troubled (and troubling) relationship of Mina Harker and Dracula. Set 7 years after the events of Bram Stoker's book. When the Harkers, Van Helsing, John Seward, and Lord Godalming return to Castle Dracula to put their painful memories to rest once and for all, the lethargic yet still-existing spirit of Dracula is revived, now animated by a need for love and revenge, primarily the former. Seward and Godalming appear in little more than name only, while Van Helsing and Jonathan, though much more active, really only get in the way as Mina tries unsuccessfully to resist the charms of an undead psychopath. Warrington even uses Mina's son, Quincey, to stick another stake into the heart of all that is good and decent. Another contradictory post-religious take on Dracula: it is one thing for a woman of faith alone to question her beliefs, but quite another for a woman who knows damn well that both God and Satan are real. ("I could abide no clerical judgements upon my state of mind," Jonathan tells us at once point. "I would rather entrust myself to science." Interesting -- given that since vampires are subject to the scientific method -- killing them in a specific way produces identical and repeatable results -- not even a scientist would adopt this absurd position.) Told, like Stoker's book, in the form of journal entries and letters from the various characters, but much less skillfully as each dovetails with the next much too conveniently. And yet, for all this, Warrington's book is light-years ahead of Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt's own horrendous "sequel," Dracula: the Un-dead.
Proto-paranormal romance more than a horror novel, focused on the troubled (and troubling) relationship of Mina Harker and Dracula. Set 7 years after the events of Bram Stoker's book. When the Harkers, Van Helsing, John Seward, and Lord Godalming return to Castle Dracula to put their painful memories to rest once and for all, the lethargic yet still-existing spirit of Dracula is revived, now animated by a need for love and revenge, primarily the former. Seward and Godalming appear in little more than name only, while Van Helsing and Jonathan, though much more active, really only get in the way as Mina tries unsuccessfully to resist the charms of an undead psychopath. Warrington even uses Mina's son, Quincey, to stick another stake into the heart of all that is good and decent. Another contradictory post-religious take on Dracula: it is one thing for a woman of faith alone to question her beliefs, but quite another for a woman who knows damn well that both God and Satan are real. ("I could abide no clerical judgements upon my state of mind," Jonathan tells us at once point. "I would rather entrust myself to science." Interesting -- given that since vampires are subject to the scientific method -- killing them in a specific way produces identical and repeatable results -- not even a scientist would adopt this absurd position.) Told, like Stoker's book, in the form of journal entries and letters from the various characters, but much less skillfully as each dovetails with the next much too conveniently. And yet, for all this, Warrington's book is light-years ahead of Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt's own horrendous "sequel," Dracula: the Un-dead.
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