Awards

• Commended for Richard & Judy Book Club: Summer Read 2006.

Overview

A brilliant and gripping tale set to become an international bestseller. When a young girl discovers an ancient and disturbing book in her father's library, she re-opens a dark chapter in his past. Her father turns out to be an expert on the real Vlad the Impaler. He also happens to believe - perhaps with good reason - that his knowledge has put himself and those he loves in the gravest of danger. His research, and his daughter's curiosity, will lead to terrible loss and murder, and will force them on a quest to find Dracula's resting place, and the true legacy of his violent life. A vivid and sophisticated re-imagining of the Dracula myth, THE HISTORIAN is, quite simply, a gothic masterpiece, and a tremendously satisfying read. This abridged edition is read by a cast of 6 superb actors, including Joanne Whalley and Martin Jarvis.

Full Product Details

9781405501705

Table of Contents

Reviews

'Some stories can be told again in endlessly different ways. Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian combines a search for the historical Dracula with a profound sense that Stoker got some things right--that the late Mediaeval tyrant kills among us yet, undead and dangerous. From Stoker, she also takes a sense that the supernatural seems more real when embedded in documentary evidence. Three generations search for Dracula's resting place, and their stories are nested within each other, so that we know that at least two quests ended badly. Kostova rations her thrills very carefully so that we jump out of our chair at quite slight surprises, especially when we have come to expect buckets of blood and loud bangs. She also has a profound and well-communicated sense of place and period, so that the book is equally at home in 1930s Rumania, Cold War Budapest and 1970s Oxford. Kostova is particularly good on the sights and sounds of remote country places and the taste of real peasant food--this sensuous realism does not always go with her other skill, the creation of imagined documents and folksongs that feel as real and true as what might be actual. This is a quietly good book rather than a spectacular debut, with some uncomfortable twists in its tail; her heroine-narrators are, and perhaps remain, in the most serious of jeopardies.' - Roz Kaveney, AMAZON.CO.UK 'A vastly ingenious plot ... Kostova is a whiz at storytelling and narrative pace' - OBSERVER

Author Information

Elizabeth Kostova lives in Michigan and is married with two children.

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