Okay so it’s a vampire novel, but don’t let that put you off.

Okay so it’s a vampire novel, but don’t let that put you off. It’s quite incredible how the legend of the undead and the mysterious tale of the man in the black cloak with the peculiar carnivores can still send a shiver up the spine. But he can and he did in this book.

Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel The Historian just about combines the right mix of research, historical facts and buckets of blood to keep the reader enthralled right through this long but captivating tale. (700 pages) And at times, you look up from the pages of this novel and wonder, just wonder, if it could all be true . (Yeah, even the biggest sceptics among you.)

A Father and his daughter search for Dracula's resting place, they travel through France and Bulgaria and of course Romania. Kostova demonstrates a unique grasp of the cultures of each country and the different periods and eras, she propels the reader into. Kostova has a skill that make the reader think and wonder exactly what is true and what might be conjured up by the imagination of the author. There is no doubt that Vlad the Impaler was an actual historical being, a bloodthirsty individual with a taste for torture, but you begin to ask yourself just how much of Kostova’s yarn is based on fact, such is the quality of her research.

This is her dexterity. Kostova makes you leap up from your chair to check out the history sites on the Internet or delve deeply into Wikipedia. After a hundred pages I stopped beginning to wonder, and instead immersed myself in the novel hoping…. wanting… to believe it all. And why not? Weaned as a teenager on the Hammer House of Horrors I wanted to see Christopher Lee and the bats and crucifixes and cloves of garlic. I was back to my youth hiding behind the settee as the movie neared to its climax.

Escapism, that’s what it’s all about. Prepare to neglect the important tasks to hand and the household chores, in this well written narrative. But… as you climb the stairs to the bedroom at night make sure you check the locks on the windows. And as you peer into the pitch black of the night… was that a restless swallow, or was it a bat.