The Historian

Let's kick off Spooky Book Month with a really spooky book!

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Summary (via TheSwanThieves.com): the story of a young woman plunged into a labyrinth where the secrets of her family's past connect to an inconceivable evil: the dark fifteenth century reign of Vlad the Impaler and a time defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive through the ages.  The search for the truth becomes an adventure of monumental proportions, taking us from monasteries and dusty libraries to the capitals of Eastern Europe.

Vlad the Impaler-
The inspiration behind Dracula

Review (2 out of 5 stars): Even though it's Spooky Books Month here at EtcetorizeReads, I have to admit, I don't watch horror movies and I don't normally read this type of book.  I don't like being scared....and this book scared me!

This was a very long book.  It was OK, but I did feel like I invested an awful lot of time into it with very little payoff in the end.

The main story is told in a series of flashbacks that are presented to the reader as if the father has written it all out in a series of letters to his daughter to explain the present day situation.  I didn't feel like this literary device worked all that well. I would have preferred that the story has simply been told from the father's point of view from the beginning.

As always, I'm a little annoyed by coincidences that are stretched as far as they possibly can be, so for that reason this book merely gets an OK from me.  However, if this is a genre that you're used to reading, you could probably overlook all these things and enjoy the scariness of Vlad the Impaler and all the havoc he wreaks.

Bran Castle
Home of Vlad the Impaler

Have you ever been to Transylvania?  Visited Bran Castle?  Tell us your spooky tales below!