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, … 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.
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Enjoyed this offshoot of Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Love this book, one everyone should read.
Mr. Stoker’s great-grandfather wrote the scariest book I’ve ever read in Dracula. This doesn’t come close to that, but it’s a nice follow-up to Bram’s characters and storyline.
A worthy successor to the classic. Highly recommended!
I loved this book. Dracula is one of my favourite books since I studied it as part of my English degree twenty years ago. This book is so well written and a fine prequel and companion to the original.
Excellent, excellent book. You don’t need to read Dracula to read this book. Loved it from the first page.
I am sure I must have read Dracula in school, but it didn’t make much of an impression on me. I am not a fan of vampires, and in fact find them a little hokey. But this book kept popping up on all sorts of “best of 2018” lists, and when I saw that the library had it, I grabbed the 500 page hefty tome and gave it a shot. I was absolutely spellbound by the storytelling, which alternated between Bram Stoker in a vague room trying to ward off enemies and a timeline that started in his sickly childhood and brings you right up to the current situation in the room. Beautifully written, truly scary, and an absolute must-read (even if you’re not into vampires.
Absolutely wonderful and all most on par with Dracula
by Jessi Brewer, Columbus
Dacre Stoker & J.D Barker have managed to pull off a 5 star gothic, victorian, somewhat historical, mystery – horror, suspense novel that dates back to pre-Dracula.Dracul is mega suspenseful, super enticing, and literally filled with eerie happenings, and a never-ending foreboding unease, that intensely saturates all 500+pgs! With multiple characters, narrators, and storylines, its impossible not to become deeply and completely entangled in every word, and its also impossible to get bored! All of the different journals and letters, viewpoints; different timelines throughout generations,…the past and the present predicaments of the characters, enable and ensure this novel to seem so very real, and make it genuinely believeable.This novel is like a door to a hidden past that takes us back to something we thought we knew so well, and then, back still further…to such tragic beginnings…with each page adding more and more depth,imagery, tragedy, mystery, & reality to it all, while breathing new life into the mystery and the horror that is Dracula! Dracul became an instant favorite to me! I love everything about this novel! It has literally everything you could want in a gothic novel pertaining to, and beautifully detailing, and describing; a prequel, a history, and a beginning: of The Count- and so much more! Also, the information supplied within this novel [before & after] is beyond interesting, very exciting, and quite possibly utterly inexplicable! I’m quite sure Bram Stoker would be proud! 100% awesome
1,000 Thank Yous to Penguin First To Read for the oppurtunity to read this title as an advanced galley!! My review is own personal opinion in exchange.
Great prequel to our favorite vampire that we love to hate
J.D. Barker is a truly incredible writer! I have read every book he has written and I am impatient for more. I highly recommend this author!
I loved the book! It scared the bejebbees out of me but was truly a great read.
This book was amazing, I loved it so much, first of all I have to admit that I never read Dracula by Bram Stoker before, but after reading this book, I definitely will. I really enjoyed reading about Bram’s childhood and his siblings and of course, their mysterios nana, a beautiful woman named Ellen.
Bram is a sick child although nobody knows what his illnes is, and everybody in his family thincks he is going to die at a young age, but his nana saves him from this fate, she heals him and dessapears after that…So the quest in order to find the truth begins… and Bram with his siblings and a friend discover that there is great danger and evil in the world, risking it all for saving Nana Ellen and destroy Dracula.
This is a must read and a favorite for me.
This was an absolute treasure of a mystery to read! From the very first sentence I was entranced by the story, the characters and the excellent writing. The story goes back and forth in time from Bram’s childhood to adulthood. The reader learns about his illness-ridden infancy and childhood and Nanny Ellen who had some very mysterious habits and surreptitiously saves his life. Bram’s sister Matilda is a precocious child whose curiosity must be satisfied and so begins their quest to discover who and what Nanny Ellen really is. This journey is undertaken with no clear goal in mind, initially. However events conspire to wrap Bram, Matilda, their brother Thornley in a haunting tale that was nearly impossible to put down. It fills in all the blanks about Dracula and will stay with you long after you finish it. Superb!
Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for a review copy. This is my honest opinion.
I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. This is a look into the Stoker family and why Bram goes after Dracul or Dracula in his later years. The Stoker family has a nanny named Ellen that is a member of the Undead. It turns out that she is the one that Dracul loves with all of his heart. She heals Bram with her blood when he is a sickly child and therefore ties them all together for forever. This was a great new take and an interesting prequel to Dracula. If you are a fan of the original, then this is one to pick up!
Whatever fiendish bargain Stoker and Barker struck to resurrect the voice of Bram Stoker with such authenticity and aplomb, it was worth it, at least to their mere mortal readers. Dracul is a genius and fevered nightmare of Gothic madness, each page seeping with ominous dread and escalating horror. It is a prequel more than just worthy of the original novel—it is sure to be an undying classic of its own, haunting, terrifying and entertaining generations to come.
This novel had a lot to live up to as the prequel for a classic, literary great such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And, I will admit that I had preconceived notions of what I expected the story to be and had set my standards very high with regard to how I thought it should/would compare to the original.
After reading the first couple of chapters, I wasn’t sure it was going to stand up to my intense scrutiny and remain upon the pedestal on which I had already placed it, based solely on the merits of its predecessor. It wasn’t written in the olde-worlde style of locution I had become accustomed to in Dracula, but rather in a more modern form of prose. And, for that reason alone, I wasn’t feeling the same the same kind of antiquated aura which gave Dracula its distinctly-haunting atmosphere. It was at this point that, with a big sigh and a heavy heart, I closed my Kindle. I spent quite a few moments brooding and silently bemoaning the fact that this was not another Dracula, after all.
Then, the realization hit me like a bolt of lightening: Dracul wasn’t necessarily intended to be about Dracula, per se, but about his ORIGINS and how he was revealed to, and gained infamy in, the mortal world. It was supposed to be about the people who discovered his existence and how their lives were shaped and affected by that knowledge and their subsequent contact with an evil entity who proved to be the most wicked, cunning and nefarious of puppeteers. It was meant to be about the unjust travesties that befell those unsuspecting, innocent hearts who were lured and lulled by his silent siren’s song, their bodies weakened, their wills bent and broken and their minds mesmerized into complacency to more easily facilitate the carrying out his diabolical demands. I had begun reading this novel with a skewed perception and completely inaccurate view of the story portrayed within its pages.
Banishing my decidedly-biased expectations and putting aside my own convoluted and egregiously-lofty notions, I picked up my Kindle and, with an open mind and renewed hope, began to read. I freely and fully allowed the story come out of the shadows of its foregoer, stand proudly in its own halo of illumination and incandescently be what it was meant to be.
And, that is when IT happened! I became totally and irrevocably immersed in the deliciously-dark, sinister and haunting otherworldly feel of the story.
Once again, my undivided attention was captured, and I was transported back in time to become an almost-tangible bystander to the events unfolding. I became increasingly invested in the characters, their seemingly-doomed plight and their wellspring of emotions. Their affable natures, abiding strength of spirit, compassion for each other and unconditional bonds of friendship warmed my heart. I admired their persistent courage in the face of evil incarnate, and their driving sense of urgency became my own. Their palpable fear and abject despair swirled around me, a murky and writhing specter, that forced its way past the lump of terror in my throat and poured its icy, malicious cocktail of fright and horror into me, chilling the very blood in my veins. I willingly and eagerly shared their ghastly and harrowing ride into the blackest and most malevolent depths of undead depravity. And, the further we descended into this macabre madness, the more my nostrils filled with the unpleasantly-pungent, cloying, earthy scent of death and decay, and the heavier a prevailing sense of impending doom sat like a boulder upon my chest.
And, for surviving the duration of this helter-skelter journey with these beloved characters who had, by now, come to feel as if they were indeed my friends, I was rewarded with a classic case of “the creeps”, that only the telling of a true tale of horror can bestow, complete with a rapidly pounding heart and a hoard of verminous goosebumps crawling like the tiny feet of scurrilous insects across the surface of my skin.
I went into reading this book with the anticipation of discovering the next great classic hidden within its pages of twisted and dark, Gothic suspense and, most-satisfactorily, that is EXACTLY what I found! I don’t see how this story could have possibly been told any better.
BTW: Bram Stoker claimed that the events recounted in Dracul were rooted in absolute truth. So, believe what you will…
#Dracul #NetGalley
*I received a complimentary ARC of this book from NetGalley & PENGUIN GROUP Putnam in order to read and provide a voluntary, unbiased and honest review, should I choose to do so.
Thanks to the First to Read program for a digital arc of Dracul to review. The following is my honest opinion of the book:
I enjoyed this book so much. A prequel to Dracula, Dracul takes the reader on the journey of Bram. A sickly child, there is little hope for Bram until his Nana Ellen takes him under her wing and gives him renewed life. Unsure of what exactly she has done to make him well, Bram and his sister Matilda make it their mission to discover Ellen’s secrets. When Ellen abruptly disappears, the children are left wondering why. As adults, sightings of Ellen (who appears not to have aged) fuel the search again.
I loved the format used to tell this story. The reader is taken back and forth between then and now and the story is brought to life through journal entries and notes of the characters. It’s an effective and captivating way to learn the story, as the reader gets to discover what each character is thinking and feeling at various times throughout the story. I also loved that I got a truly creepy vibe at various times. There is a particular scene in a morgue that freaked me out!
The ending left me a bit puzzled. I had a few unanswered questions and wonder if there will be another book to follow (hopefully so!).
I would definitely recommend this book to others, especially those who love Dracula. This is a perfect read for Halloween!
This was a fantastic book! Really makes you wonder if Vampires really do exist.
ARC from Penguin First To Read
Dracul is based on Bram Stoker’s notes, JD Barker and the great grandnephew of Bram Stoker Dacre Stoker have teamed up to bring us the prequel to the classic Dracula. I know the story of Dracula but have never read the original. I am a fan of JD Barker so I had to read this and I am glad that I did.
The story starts with Bram Stoker and his siblings as children living in the English countryside and their Nanny Ellen. Bram is a sickly child and not expected to live long, that is until the very odd Nanny Ellen seems to cure him with her strange powers. Nanny Ellen disappears at night, sometimes for days and weeks at a time, but she always returns to the Stoker family. There are some grisly murders in town and then Nanny Ellen disappears and never returns.
Now adults the Stoker siblings set off in search of Nanny Ellen, taking the reader on a exciting journey where we learn the origin of Dracula. A well written, exciting story that has sparked my interest to now read the original books written by Bram Stoker.