Dracula in Love by Karen Essex

Book Details
Dracula in Love by Karen Essex
Hardcover, 384 Pages
2010, Doubleday
ISBN: 0385528914

Synopsis
From 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.

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. 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. 

Bram Stoker’s classic novel offered one side of the story, in which Mina had no past and bore no responsibility for the unfolding events. Now, for the first time, the truth of Mina’s personal voyage, and of vampirism itself, is revealed. 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.

Review
Dracula in Love is basically the original Dracula novel told from the female perspective, or more specifically, from Mina Harker's perspective. We learn her background and then see her side of the story, which means that Dracula in Love barely resembles the original novel.

I felt that Dracula in Love felt more authentic - much more realistic - than Stoker's Dracula given the time period. Instead of Renfield, we see Mina in the asylum. Women institutionalized for normal sexual appetites (by today's standards) were given horrific treatments in order to rid them of their deviant tendencies. I found this to be thoroughly engrossing and consider it to be the best part of the entire book.

Mina felt like a much stronger character in Dracula in Love, most likely because she is the main character and has a fully fleshed out backstory. Dracula becomes a romantic character, having loved Mina for multiple lifetimes. There seems to be no evil in him, but perhaps more of an indifference to human life. It was though all of the horror that Dracula was supposed to embody was sucked out, making him lovestruck and hopeful but slightly embittered by centuries of being ultimately rejected by the same woman time and again.

I did not love the vampire creation background explained in Dracula in Love. After some mentioning of both Lilith and Eve, Mina is given the credit for "creating" vampirism. It was predictable and seemed much too easy an explanation while still managing to be confusing by bringing in other supernatural species.

While all of the characters are much more fully realized than in the original Dracula, all of the men in Dracula in Love are portrayed as horrible people. In making the women more powerful, the men became nothing short of pitiful. Dracula in Love goes places that the original never dreamed and that, at times, both strengthens and weakens the story. If you ever wished Dracula had a more feminist angle or was more of a love story, Dracula in Love is sure to please. If you like your Dracula flavored with more evil and horror, I'd look elsewhere.

Rating

Links

Karen Essex's website