A review by womanofbalnain
Dracul, by J.D. Barker, Dacre Stoker

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

I loved this book. Picked it up at 8 am on a Saturday and didn’t put it down until 11 at night. I’m pretty sure last week I said I’d found my favorite scary book of the season, but I lied. It’s this one. This prequel to Dracula hit every single note I wanted: genuinely scary, great pacing, a tight brother/sister duo, a tragic love story, and tension. When Dracula is first introduced to one of our characters, I realized I read an entire passage with my mouth hanging open. There isn’t a single aspect of this I didn’t enjoy. And I especially loved the end, because it obviously leads into Dracula.

One of my favorite bits was knowing Van Helsing’s identity was changed for ‘protection.’ What a fun but smaller detail. Doesn’t change anything about the story to know that, it’s just a fun tidbit. Vampire stories aren’t everyone’s thing, I know, but if you’re gonna try, start here.

I 100% plan on re-reading this next year and then reading Dracula right after.

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