Bloodsucking Fiends
Categories: Staff Picks , Horror & Supernatural
If you haven't yet read Elizabeth Kostova's blockbuster debut The Historian, you might want to pick up a copy. Kostova, who graduated from Yale, took 10 years to research and write her vampire tale. Apparently her persistence paid off--Little, Brown and Co. purchased the book for $2 million, and Sony shelled out another $1.5 million for the movie rights. It also won the 2006 Book Sense Book of the Year Award and the 2005 Quill Award for Debut Author of the Year. It has been published in 37 different languages, had an initial print run of 300,000, and hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
The book opens in 1972 Amsterdam, where a 16-year-old American girl discovers an ancient book in her father's library. The book is blank except for a creepy drawing inscribed with the word "Drakulya", but it is the letters hidden inside it that intrigue her. Letters which begin with the ominous salutation "My dear and unfortunate successor..."
When the narrator (who remains nameless) asks her father, Paul, about the book, he tells her that he discovered it while in college. After showing it to his mentor, Professor Rossi, he learned about its connection to Vlad the Impaler, otherwise known as Dracula. Professor Rossi told Paul that he, too, owned a copy of the book, and that for decades he had been consumed with hunting down Dracula, whose existence he firmly believed in. When the professor disappears, Paul, along with a mysterious woman he meets in the library, attempts to track him down. As the two travel from Turkey to Romania, from France to Bulgaria, they move closer and closer to the horrifying truth--and a final confrontation with the undead.
The library has a plentiful collection of "vampire lit"--everything from mysteries to romances (yes, I did say romances). Here are a few you might want to check out:
- Dracula--Bram Stoker
- Renfield--Barbara Hambly
- Danse Macabre--Laurell K. Hamilton
- Definitely Dead--Charlaine Harris
- Undead and Unpopular--MaryJanice Davidson
- High Stakes--Erin McCarthy
- Happy Hour at Casa Dracula--Marta Acosta
