A Makeover

“What a cold, dark, silence perfection would be.” Truth.

33.12 Anno Dracula

Anno Dracula - AKA Jack The Ripper, Vampire Slayer or Sherlock and the Silver Knife or Dr Jekyll and... Hopefully you get my point - is a wicked smart, and wicked fun, mash-up of all these great characters of Victorian life and literature in a London where men and vampires are attempting to co-exist.

I love a smart book that straight up expects its reader to be smart too, and here all the historical and literary references make the book much more fun to read; but if a reader didn’t recognize them they wouldn’t be left out of understanding the story, and I very much love honoring people for being well read without chastising others.

Queen Victoria has married Count Dracula, and many are finding themselves faced with the decision to turn or not.  Out of hiding come the ancients while the rampant spread of vampirism seems to have taken hold most tightly in the areas of the less fortunate, Whitechapel to be specific.  There is political unrest, as those looking for power have to decide if power can be sustained for an eternity or a lifetime, and to make matters worse, there is a murderer on the loose.  He is killing women, vampire women, with a silver knife and will come to be known as Jack the Ripper. See, fun huh?  And it is fun, if anything maybe a bit too much.  In the end, I felt like the development of our two main characters, a hero and a heroine, faltered so that every clever character could be included.  I want to know more about both of them, and frankly thought I would.  This book is ripe for a sequel and it looks like there is another book that takes place in 1918 and is clearly related but I can’t quite tell how much.  I know I often rage about the number of series in publishing lately, but this is one I could have gotten behind.

On a side note, book covers are incredibly important in swaying me towards a book or not. I will buy a book solely based on its cover. I will purposely put off buying a book if a different editions cover is markedly better.  I HATE when original covers are replaced by pictures from the movie. When I sought out this book after reading a recommendation I really liked the current cover:

But the copy I got from the library has this cover:

I mean Jesus, there is purple lace... Ugh, it’s a tragedy of bad taste.  Thank goodness I had already prejudged this book by its alternate cover.