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Summary
Summary
The prequel to Dracula , inspired by notes and texts left behind by the author of the classic novel, Dracul is a supernatural thriller that reveals not only Dracula's true origins but Bram Stoker's--and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them.
It is 1868, and a twenty-one-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here...
A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents' Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen--a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen--and that the nightmare they've thought long ended is only beginning.
Author Notes
Dacre Stoker is the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker and the international bestselling co-author of Dracula: The Un-Dead , the official Stoker family-endorsed sequel to Dracula . He is also the co-editor of The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker: The Dublin Years . He currently lives with his wife, Jenne, in Aiken, South Carolina, where he manages the Bram Stoker Estate. J.D. Barker is the internationally bestselling author of Forsaken , The Fourth Monkey , and The Fifth to Die . He was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel, and winner of the New Apple Medalist Award. His works have been translated into numerous languages and optioned for both film and television. Barker currently resides in Pennsylvania with his wife, Dayna, and daughter, Ember.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Promoted as a prequel to Dracula, this novel is a melodramatized family history that proposes author Bram Stoker and his siblings confronted an undead nemesis early in their lives. Set for the most part in Ireland and told through a mix of straightforward narrative, personal letters, and journal and diary entries spanning the second half of the 19th century, it relates how a sickly young Bram was brought back from death's doorstep by the bite of his nursemaid, the mysterious Ellen Crone. Years after Ellen's abrupt disappearance from their lives, Bram, his sister Matilda, and his brother Thornley are drawn into a web of intrigues when they discover that Ellen is a Dearg-Due, a bloodsucking being of Irish folklore who is under the thumb of a more sinister vampire master. Although the authors evoke particulars of Bram Stoker's Victorian vampire classic, their portrayal of Ellen as a sympathetic victim is decidedly modern. In an author's note, Stoker, the great-grandnephew of Bram, explores gaps in the fossil record of Dracula's genesis to explain the direction his own Dracula-infused collaboration took. Bram Stoker fans and scholars will find this a satisfying exploration of his legacy. Agent: Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
In this officially sanctioned prequel to the classic, Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew, Dacre Stoker (Dracula: The Un-dead, 2009), and thriller writer Barker (The Fourth Monkey, 2017) tell the story of Dracula from the point of view of its author. A tense opening scene finds young Stoker doing battle with an evil force high in an abandoned tower. The story then moves back to Stoker's childhood, when he was saved from an illness by his odd nanny. The novel then mirrors the format of the original, with journal entries from Stoker and his siblings as they piece together the truth behind the legend of Dracula, which his publisher refused to include in the final edits of the novel. Dracul is interesting because it sheds light on the original characters and author. Adding just the right touch of suspense increases the pace and ratchets up the tension, which appeals to the contemporary reader. While the book comes with a built-in audience fans of the original suggest it to those who like menacing, supernatural historical novels like Dan Simmons' Drood (2009) and The Quick (2014) by Lauren Owen.--Becky Spratford Copyright 2018 Booklist
Guardian Review
Steven Erikson, better known for his high fantasy, tackles the well-worn SF trope of first contact in Rejoice: A Knife to the Heart (Gollancz, £18.99). When a trinity of alien races sends an AI emissary to Earth, the fabric of reality is altered. Force fields manifest to protect flora, fauna and vast areas of wilderness from human depredation: they also make it impossible to despoil the planet or slaughter animals, and humans can no longer harm each other. At a stroke, violence is a thing of the past. Meanwhile, an SF author named Samantha August is abducted by the aliens and spends much of the novel aboard a starship in orbit above the Earth, as an AI persuades her to act as the trinity's spokesperson. What follows is a leisurely, philosophical disquisition on the nature of the alien intervention and the post-capitalist future of the human race. Rejoice rejoices in satirising capitalism, dumb US presidents, greedy media moguls, impotent military high-ups and much more. The nameless narrator of Bartholomew Bennett's first novel, The Pale Ones (Inkandescent, £8.99), is a washed-up thirtysomething whose girlfriend has left him and fled to Japan. Trawling charity shops for valuable books and selling them online, he meets a fellow dealer and is drawn into an ambiguous relationship with the obnoxious Harris. They leave London and head north, ostensibly to collect books from charity shops and split the proceeds. But Harris has a mesmerising hold over people - our narrator included - and takes more than he gives. Bennett's short novel is notable for the gradual, creeping unease with which he imbues a series of apparently mundane events, bringing to mind the subtle horrors of Robert Aickman 's short stories. The leisurely, unsettling narrative includes some startlingly graphic images: "The helix of his left ear partially eaten away by a sore the colour of a waterlogged raisin." The Pale Ones is an impressive debut. Bram Stoker always intended Dracula as a work of non-fiction, though the first 101 pages of the original manuscript, claiming the story was factual, were dropped by its publisher who was worried about public reaction in the aftermath of the Jack the Ripper murders. This, at any rate, is the starting point of Dracul (Bantam, £12.99), a collaboration between Bram Stoker's great-grand-nephew Dacre Stoker and JD Barker. The authors have extrapolated from the excised pages and incorporated Bram Stoker himself into the text to explain how he came to write Dracula. We open with Stoker's childhood in Dublin, nursed by the mysterious Nanna Ellen, who cures him of illnesses only to vanish when he's seven, yet is still impossibly youthful when she reappears years later. Told through letters, third person narrative and fragments of diary and journal entries, the novel charts Stoker's relationship with Nanna Ellen and his flight across Europe on the trail of a truly evil Count Dracula. The book culminates in a gripping finale - though loose ends are left dangling for the possibility of welcome sequels. The former magician and stand-up comedian John Ajvide Lindqvist 's horror novels have been earning him a reputation as Sweden's answer to Stephen King. His 2004 novel, Let the Right One In, was a bestseller in Sweden and made into a film directed by Tomas Alfredson, in 2008. Lindqvist's seventh novel, I Always Find You (Riverrun, £20), seamlessly translated by Marlaine Delargy, is set in 1980s Stockholm. Teenage narrator John Lindqvist leaves home to set himself up as a magician, renting an apartment in a rundown tenement building that is occupied by decidedly strange neighbours. Drawn to these people, and to the gruesome secret they share in the communal shower room, Lindqvist embarks on a mind-altering journey that changes him from a lonely teenager to a borderline psychopath. The strength of the novel lies in the author's calm, unhurried reporting of increasingly supernatural events, and his decision to have a fictional version of himself as narrator, which lends an unsettlingly autobiographical element and grounds the story in reality. I Always Find You is a compelling treatise on loneliness, alienation and the evil that lurks in every heart. In 1976, the bestselling Interview with a Vampire launched the debonair Prince Lestat on to the world stage. Twelve books later, with a few longueurs along the way, we reach volume 13 of Anne Rice 's Vampire Chronicles with Blood Communion (Chatto & Windus, £20). Almost a quarter of this short novel retreads old territory as it brings new readers, and forgetful fans, up to speed with what has gone before: the tortuous tale of how Lestat became Prince of Vampires. But now his dominion is under threat from fellow vampires and he must muster all his resolve to do battle against a horde of enemies old and new. The book takes flight in the second half, and Rice offers up lashings of blood in a few skilful set pieces. Fans will love it; new readers are advised to start at the beginning. - Eric Brown.
Kirkus Review
Very scary, boys and girls: the "prequel" to the classic 19th-century novel Dracula, with lots of gore thrown in to satisfy 21st-century tastes.Stoker (Dracula: The Undead, 2009) has the name, Barker (The Fifth to Die, 2018, etc.) has the chops, and both work from an intriguing notion: When Bram Stoker shaped his noveloriginally billed as a work of nonfictionfor publication, the first 102 pages were taken out by the publisher. What if they contained crucial details concerning origins, setting up future conflicts while clearing up mysteries? This foundational novel makes Bram a central character in his own story, which "finds its roots in truth." What's more, Bram is haunted by memory: A sickly child, he was bedridden, tended to by a woman named Ellen Crone, who here joins the ranks of the undead but, for all that, has some redeeming qualities, even if people tend to die and go missing whenever she's around. In healthier adulthood, Bram and his siblings go off in search of Ellen, who's disappearedonly to be spotted, years later, not having aged a bit. (Incidentally, Ellen and her fellow vamps can walk in sunlight; it just enervates them.) Well, strange doings are afoot, and those strange doings involve a preternaturally sinister chappy of grim countenance and sharp fang. Stoker and Barker positively exult in Dracul's ability to control all manner of underground critters, including tower-climbing snakes and other creepy-crawlies, and their gross-out stuff can't be beat: "The shroud felt moist, as if it were covered with some kind of bile or slime; it was akin to reaching into the carcass of some dead thing and taking hold of the stomach." It's a lively if unlovely story, in which the once febrile Bram becomes a sort of Indiana Jones and other heroes emerge in the endless fight against the damnedsome of whom, of course, remain undead for further adventures.A big book that will no doubt be a hit among monster-movie and horror lit fansand for good reason. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
This historical thriller with a distinct emphasis on gothic horror is a prequel to Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, written by Stoker's great-grandnephew, Dacre Stoker (Dracula: The Un-Dead) and best-selling author Barker (The Fourth Monkey). Bram Stoker himself stars as the main character in a story that begins with his sickly childhood in Ireland and the appropriately supernatural cure to his ailments. Subsequently, the adult Bram, and his intriguing and varied companions, travel through Europe on the trail of a variety of grotesque and mysterious characters-including the dark man himself, Dracula. The narrative moves fairly quickly, pulling readers into this thrilling tale, with twists that keep the pages turning, even late into the night. VERDICT Obviously a strong pick for fans of classic gothic tales, such as Dracula, but also good for anyone who appreciates gripping historical novels, including those by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. [See Prepub Alert, 4/30/18.]-Elizabeth McArthur, Bexar Cty. Digital Lib., BiblioTech, San Antonio © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
NOW Bram stares at the door. Sweat trickles down his creased forehead. He brushes his fingers through his damp hair, his temples throbbing with ache. How long has he been awake? Two days? Three? He doesn't know, each hour blends into the next, a fevered dream from which there is no waking, only sleep, deeper, darker- No! There can be no thought of sleep. He forces his eyes wide. He wills them open, preventing even a single blink, for each blink comes heavier than the last. There can be no rest, no sleep, no safety, no family, no love, no future, no- The door. Must watch the door. Bram stands up from the chair, the only furniture in the room, his eyes locking on the thick oak door. Had it moved? He thought he had seen it shudder, but there had been no sound. Not the slightest of noises betrayed the silence of this place; there was only his own breathing, and the anxious tapping of his foot against the cold stone floor. The doorknob remains still, the ornate hinges looking as they probably did a hundred years ago, the lock holding firm. Until his arrival at this place, he had never seen such a lock, forged from iron and molded in place. The mechanism itself is one with the door, secured firmly at the center with two large dead bolts branching out to the right and the left and attached to the frame. The key is in his pocket, and it will remain in his pocket. Bram's fingers tighten around the stock of his Snider-Enfield Mark III rifle, his index finger playing over the trigger guard. In recent hours, he has loaded the weapon and pulled and released the breech lock more times than he can count. His free hand slips over the cold steel, ensuring the bolt is in the proper position. He pulls back the hammer. This time he sees it-a slight wavering in the dust in the crack between the door and the floor, a puff of air, nothing more, but movement nonetheless. Noiselessly, Bram sets the rifle down, leaning it against his chair. He reaches into the straw basket to his left and retrieves a wild white rose, one of seven remaining. The oil lamp, the only light in the room, flickers with his movement. With caution, he approaches the door. The last rose lay in a shriveled heap, the petals brown and black and ripe with death, the stem dry and sickly with thorns appearing larger than they had when the flower still held life. The stench of rot wafts up; the rose has taken on the scent of a corpse flower. Bram kicks the old rose away with the toe of his boot and gently rests the new bloom in its place against the bottom of the door. "Bless this rose, Father, with Your breath and hand and all things holy. Direct Your angels to watch over it, and guide their touch to hold all evil at bay. Amen." From the other side of the door comes a bang, the sound of a thousand pounds impacting the old oak. The door buckles, and Bram jumps back to the chair, his hand scooping up the leaning rifle and taking aim as he drops to one knee. Then all is quiet again. Bram remains still, the rifle sighted on the door until the weight of the gun causes his aim to falter. He lowers the barrel then, his eyes sweeping the room. What would one think if one were to walk in and witness such a sight? 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. Between the mirrors, he has nailed crosses, nearly fifty of them. Some bear the image of Christ while others are nothing more than fallen branches nailed together and blessed by his own hand. He continued the crosses onto the floor, first with a piece of chalk, then by scraping directly into the stone with the tip of his bowie knife, until no surface remained untouched. Whether or not it is enough, he cannot be sure, but it is all he could do. He cannot leave. Most likely, he will never leave. Bram finds his way back to the chair and settles in. Outside, a loon cries out as the moon comes and goes behind thick clouds. He retrieves the pocket watch from his coat and curses-he forgot to wind it, and the hands ceased their journey at 4:30. He stuffs it back into his pocket. Another bang on the door, this one louder than the last. Bram's breath stills as his eyes play back over the door, just in time to see the dust dance at the floor and settle back down to the stone. How long can this barrier hold against such an assault? Bram doesn't know. The door is solid, to be sure, but the onslaught behind it grows angrier with each passing hour, its determination to escape growing as the dawn creeps nearer. The petals of the rose have already begun to brown, much faster than the last. What will become of him when it finally does breach the door? He thinks of the rifle and the knife and knows they will be of little use. He spots his journal on the floor beside the basket of roses; it must have fallen from his coat. Bram picks up the tattered leather-bound volume and thumbs through the pages before returning to the chair, one eye still on the door. He has very little time. Plucking a pencil from his breast pocket, he turns to a blank page and begins to write by the quivering light of the oil lamp. THE JOURNAL of BRAM STOKER The peculiarities of Ellen Crone. That is, of course, where I should start, for this is as much her story as it is mine, perhaps more so. This woman, this monster, this wraith, this friend, this . . . being. She was always there for us. My sisters and brothers would tell you as much. But how so, is where inquiries should lie. She was there at my beginning, and will no doubt be there for my end, as I was for hers. This was, and always shall be, our dance. My lovely Nanna Ellen. Her hand always reaching out, even as the prick of her nails drew blood. My beginning, what a horrid affair it was. From my earliest memories, I was a sickly child, ill and bedridden from birth until my seventh year, when a cure befell me. I will speak of this cure in great length to come, but for now it is important you understand the state in which I spent those early years. I was born 8 November 1847, to Abraham and Charlotte, in a modest home at 15 Marino Crescent in Clontarf, Ireland, a small seaside town located about four miles from Dublin. Bordered by a park to the east and with views of the harbor to the west, our town gained fame as the site of the Battle of Clontarf, in 1014, in which the armies of Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland, defeated the Vikings of Dublin and their allies, the Irish of Leinster. This battle is regarded as the end of the Irish-Viking Wars, a bloody conflagration marked by the death of thousands upon the very shore over which my little room looked. In more recent years, Clontarf found itself the destination of Ireland's rich, a holiday setting for those wishing to escape the crowds of Dublin and enjoy fishing and strolls across our beaches. I romanticize Clontarf, though, and in 1847 it was anything but romantic. This was a period of famine and disease throughout Ireland that had begun two years prior to my birth and did not find relief until 1854. Phytophthora infestans, otherwise known as potato blight, had begun ravaging crops during the 1840s and escalated into an abomination in which Ireland would lose twenty-five percent of its population to emigration or death. When I was a child, this tragedy had reached its peak. Ma and Pa moved us inland in 1849, to escape hunger, disease, and crime; and the fresh air, it was hoped, would avail my poor health, but all it brought was further isolation, the sounds of the harbor sought by my young ears falling more distant. For Pa, the daily walk to his office at Dublin Castle only grew as the world died around us, a damp web of grief lacing over all that was left. I watched all this transpire from my attic room high atop our home, known as Artane Lodge, as nothing more than a spectator, relying upon the tales of my family to explain everything taking place beyond our walls. I watched the beggars as they ravaged our neighborsÕ gardens of turnips and cabbage, as they plucked the eggs from our chicken coop, in hope of staving off hunger for one more night. I watched as they pulled clothing from the rope-strung laundry of strangers, still damp, in order to dress their children. Despite all this, when they were able, my parents and our neighbors opened their homes and invited these less fortunate inside for a warm meal and shelter from the storm. From my humble birth, the Stoker family motto ÒWhatever is right and honorableÓ was instilled in me and guided all in our home. We were by no means well-off, but our family fared better than most. In the fall of 1854, Pa, a civil servant, was toiling in the chief secretaryÕs office at Dublin Castle, as he had for the thirty-nine years prior, having begun in 1815 at only sixteen years of age. Pa was substantially older than Ma, something that did not resonate with me until I was an adult. The castle was the residence of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and his office handled all correspondence between English governmental agencies and their Irish counterparts. Pa spent his time cataloging these communications, ranging from the mundane day-to-day business of the country to official responses on topics having to do with poverty, famine, disease, epidemics, cattle plagues, hospitals and prisons, political unrest and rebellion. If he wished to ignore the problems vexing our time, he could not; he was deep in the thick of it. Ma was an associate member of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, a major force in the food drives and relief efforts of Dublin, a post previously reserved only for men. Not a day would pass when she wasn't haggling with a neighbor for milk, only to trade it with another neighbor for cloth. Her efforts kept food on the table for our large family and helped to feed countless others who crossed our threshold in these times of need. She held our family together-and as an adult, I see that now, but my seven-year-old self would have testified otherwise. I would have told you she locked me in my room, trading my happiness for isolation from the world's ailments, not willing to allow even the slightest exposure. Our house stood off Malahide Road, a street paved with stone extracted from the quarry near Rockfield Cottage. I was confined to the attic, its peaked windows my only escape, but I could see much from such a height-from the farmlands around us to the distant harbor on a clear day-even the crumbling tower of Artane Castle. I watched the world bustle around me, a play for which I alone was the audience, my illness dictating my attendance. What ailed me, you wonder? That is a question with no real answer, for nobody was able to say for certain. Whatever it was, my affliction found me shortly after birth and clung to me with wretched fingers. On my worst days, it was a feat for me to cross my room; the effort would leave me winded, bordering on unconsciousness. A mere conversation drained what little energy I possessed; after speaking but a few sentences, I often grew pale, and cold to the touch, as sweat crawled from my pores, and I shivered as my moisture met the seaside air. My heart would sometimes beat fiercely in my breast, irregular, as if the organ sought rhythm and could not find it. And the headaches: they would befall me and linger, day upon day, a belt tightening around my head at the leisurely hand of a fiend. I spent the days and nights in my little attic room, wondering if my last dusk had just passed or if I would wake to see the dewy dawn. I was not entirely alone in the attic; there were two other rooms. One belonged to my sister Matilda, eight at the time, and the other was occupied by our nanny, Ellen Crone. She shared her room with Baby Richard, my recently born brother and her most pressing charge. The floor below mine housed the home's only indoor privy as well as my parents' room and a second bedroom occupied by my other two brothers, Thornley and Thomas, nine and five, respectively. At the ground level could be found the kitchen, a living room, and a dining room with a table large enough to seat the entire household, with the exception of Ellen Crone, who preferred to take meals alone after our repasts came to an end. There was a basement as well, but Ma forbade me from ever descending those steps; our coal was stored down there, and exposure to its dust could consign me to my bed for a week. Behind our house stood an old stone barn. We had three chickens and a pig there, all tended by Matilda from the time she was three years old. In the beginning, she had named the pigs, but around her fifth year she realized someone was switching the larger sows for smaller ones at least twice a year. By her sixth year, she realized those same pigs went to the butcher and found their way onto our supper plates. She stopped naming them then. Over all of this, Ellen Crone watched. THE JOURNAL of BRAM STOKER Where to start? There is so much to tell and precious little time to tell it-but I know when all things changed. By the time one particular week came to a close, I would be healed, our dear Nanna Ellen would be gone, and a family would be dead. It started innocently enough, with a little eavesdropping. We were but children-me, seven; Matilda, eight-and yet that fall season was never to be forgotten. And it began with only two words. Excerpted from Dracul by Dacre Stoker, J. D. Barker All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.