Kostova never strays far from the conventions of the genre, and her historical thriller feels somewhat indebted to best-sellers of the recent past there are Christian heresies, scholarly sleuths, and a malaprop-prone Eastern European guide. The structure-a story within a letter within a flashback-is an innovative complication, but it is soon shaken off by the swift-moving plot. Kostova's knowledge of occult arcana is impressive, and she packages her erudition in a graceful narrative that only occasionally lapses into melodrama. His daughter's quest to find him is interwoven with letters that reveal the past in full. Halfway through his tale, which is told over several sessions in various atmospheric European locations, he vanishes.

'Kostova's vampire is nocampy Lugosi knockoff.Blending history and myth, Kostova has fashioned aversion so fresh that when a stake is finally driven through a heart, itinspires the tragic shock of something happening for the very first time.' , 'Impossible to Resist.' , 'Impossible to Resist.'�, 'Part thriller, parthistory, part romance.Kostova has a keen sense of storytelling and she has amarvelous tale to tell.', 'Hypnotic.A Thrill Ride Through History.' , 'Hypnotic.A Thrill Ride Through History.'�, 'Part thriller, part history, part romance.Kostova has a keen sense of storytelling and she has a marvelous tale to tell.'- Baltimore Sun, 'Kostova's vampire is nocampy Lugosi knockoff.Blending history and myth, Kostova has fashioned aversion so fresh that when a stake is finally driven through a heart, itinspires the tragic shock of something happening for the very first time.', 'In this smart retelling of the Dracula story, a young girl's discovery of a mysterious book, blank save for a sinister woodcut of a dragon, impels her father to divulge, reluctantly, details of his vampire-hunting days back in grad school.

The historian kostova