REVIEW: DRACUL by Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker

Title: Dracul
Author: Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker
Series: -
Genres: Gothic, Vampires
Publisher: Putnam
Release: October 2nd, 2018
Source: ebook
Pages: 512

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BLURB:
The prequel to Dracula, inspired by notes and texts left behind by the author of the classic novel, Dracul is a riveting novel of gothic suspense that reveals not only Dracula's true origins but Bram Stoker's -- and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them.

It is 1868, and a twenty-one-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here...

A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents' Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen -- a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen -- and that the nightmare they've thought long ended is only beginning.

 

REVIEW: STRANGE PRACTICE by Vivian Shaw

Title: Strange Practice
Author: Vivian Shaw
Series: Dr. Greta Helsing
Genres: Vampires, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit
Release: July 25th 2017
Source: ebook
Pages: 320

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Meet Greta Helsing, fast-talking doctor to the undead. Keeping the supernatural community not-alive and well in London has been her family's specialty for generations.

Greta Helsing inherited the family's highly specialized, and highly peculiar, medical practice. In her consulting rooms, Dr. Helsing treats the undead for a host of ills - vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights, and entropy in mummies. Although barely making ends meet, this is just the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta's been groomed for since childhood.

Until a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human and undead Londoners alike. As terror takes hold of the city, Greta must use her unusual skills to stop the cult if she hopes to save her practice, and her life.

 

REVIEW: QUEEN TAKES KING by Joely Sue Burkhart

Title: Queen Takes King
Author: Joely Sue Burkhart
Series: Their Vampire Queen 2
Genres: Vampires, Erotica
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Release: December 18th 2017
Source: ebook
Pages: 350

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How many Blood will come to the vampire queen's call... and will they be able to protect her from the king?

For the first time in her adult life, Shara has plenty of money thanks to the Isador legacy--and she's not alone. Daire and Rik are devoted lovers, but they know other Blood are coming. Blood who may challenge Rik for the coveted alpha spot at her back.

As her power grows, so does her hunger. But without fangs, she fears she'll never be the queen her Blood expect. More Blood means power struggles and complications, and she has no idea how to keep everyone happy. Worse, her dreams are quickly becoming something to fear.

Moving to establish her permanent nest, she can't stop dreaming of the king. A massive monster. Chained in darkness. Lost to madness. He roars with fury in her dreams, demanding his release.

But is he the key to unraveling her own mysterious past--or the most dangerous threat of all?

 

REVIEW: QUEEN TAKES KNIGHTS by Joely Sue Burkhart

Title: Queen Takes Knights
Author: Joely Sue Burkhart
Series: Their Vampire Queen 1
Genres: Vampires, Erotica
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Release: October 17th 2017
Source: ebook
Pages: 190

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A lost virgin vampire queen. Two vampire knights sworn to protect her.
It’s about to get very hot… and bloody…

Ever since her mother was murdered by monsters five years ago, Shara Isador has been on the run. Alone, scared, and exhausted, she’s finally cornered in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Out of hope with nowhere else to turn, she’s ready to end it all when two men come to her rescue.

They say she’s a lost queen descended from Isis, and they’re her Blood, vampire knights sworn to protect her. It all seems like a crazy nightmare, until the alpha offers his blood. Then she realizes she’s never wanted anything more. Except maybe his body… and his friend’s, too.

But they’re not the only ones searching for a lost queen. Shara must learn how to wield her new powers quickly and conquer her fears if she intends to keep them all alive.

 

REVIEW: THE GILDED KING by Josie Jaffrey

Title: The Gilded King
Author: Josie Jaffrey
Series: Sovereign 1
Genres: Paranormal, YA
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Release: June 25th 2018
Source: arc
Pages: 303

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In the Blue, the world’s last city, all is not well.

Julia is stuck within its walls. She serves the nobility from a distance until she meets Lucas, a boy who believes in fairytales that Julia’s world can’t accommodate. The Blue is her prison, not her castle, and she’d escape into the trees if she didn’t know that contamination and death awaited humanity outside.

But not everyone in the Blue is human, and not everyone can be contained.

Beyond the city’s boundaries, in the wild forests of the Red, Cameron has precious little humanity left to lose. As he searches for a lost queen, he finds an enemy rising that he thought long dead. An enemy that the humans have forgotten how to fight.

One way or another, the walls of the Blue are coming down. The only question is what side you’ll be on when they do.

 

REVIEW: BOUND BY FLAMES by Jeaniene Frost

Title: Bound by Flames
Author: Jeaniene Frost
Series: Night Prince 3
Genres: Vampire, Paranormal, Romance
Publisher: Avon
Release: January 27th 2015
Source: eBook
Pages: 342

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Play with fire, pay the price.

Leila’s years on the carnie circuit were certainly an education. What she didn’t learn: how to be a vampire, or how to be married to the most famous vampire of them all. Adjusting to both has Leila teetering on a knife edge between passion and peril, and now the real danger is about to begin…

Vlad must battle with a centuries-old enemy whose reach stretches across continents and whose strength equals his own. It isn’t like Vlad to feel fear, but he does…for Leila, because his enemy knows she is Vlad’s greatest weakness. As friend and foe alike align against him—and his overprotectiveness drives Leila away—Vlad’s love for his new bride could be the very thing that dooms them both…

 

REVIEW: TWICE TEMPTED by Jeaniene Frost

Title: Twice Tempted
Author: Jeaniene Frost
Series: Night Prince 2
Genres: Vampire, Paranormal, Romance
Publisher: Avon
Release: March 26th 2013
Source: eBook
Pages: 360

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BLURB:
Dating the Prince of Darkness has its challenges...

Leila's psychic abilities have been failing her, and now she isn't sure what the future holds. If that weren't enough, her lover, Vlad, has been acting distant. Though Leila is a mere mortal, she's also a modern woman who refuses to accept the cold shoulder treatment forever–especially from the darkly handsome vampire who still won't admit that he loves her.

Like choosing between eternal love and a loveless eternity...

Soon circumstances send Leila back to the carnival circuit, where tragedy strikes. And when she finds herself in the crosshairs of a killer who may be closer than she realizes, Leila must decide who to trust– the fiery vampire who arouses her passions like no other or the tortured knight who longs to be more than a friend? With danger stalking her every step of the way, all it takes is one wrong move to damn her for eternity.

 

REVIEW: PARASITE LIFE by Victoria Dalpe

Title: Parasite Life
Author:  Victoria Dalpe
Series: n/a
Genres: Horror, Young Adult
Publisher: ChiTeen
Release: October 10th 2017
Source: eBook
Pages: 206

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Jane lives alone in a strange old house with her invalid mother who has been catatonic for years, afflicted by a strange wasting disease. But the friendship of a new girl in town, Sabrina, will push Jane to unearth the mysteries of her mother's past and the dark history of her missing father, forcing her to face a monstrous lineage and the cost of her dark life.

 

REVIEW: CARPE CORPUS by Rachel Caine

Title: Carpe Corpus
Author:  Rachel Caine
Series: The Morganville Vampires #6
Genres: Paranormal, Vampire, YA
Publisher: Signet
Release: 2009
Source: Paperback/Audiobook
Pages: 241

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In the small college town of Morganville, vampires and humans lived in (relative) peace-until all the rules got rewritten when the evil vampire Bishop arrived, looking for the lost book of vampire secrets. He's kept a death grip on the town ever since. Now an underground resistance is brewing, and in order to contain it, Bishop must go to even greater lengths. He vows to obliterate the town and all its inhabitants-the living and the undead. Claire Danvers and her friends are the only ones who stand in his way. But even if they defeat Bishop, will the vampires ever be content to go back to the old rules, after having such a taste of power?

REVIEW: LORD OF MISRULE by Rachel Caine

Title: Lorn of Misrule
Author:  Rachel Caine
Series: The Morganville Vampires #5
Genres: Paranormal, YA, Vampires
Publisher: New American Library
Release: 2009
Source: Paperback/Audiobook
Pages: 246

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BLURB:
In the college town of Morganville, vampires and humans coexist in (relatively) bloodless harmony. Then comes Bishop, the master vampire who threatens to abolish all order, revive the forces of the evil dead, and let chaos rule. But Bishop isn't the only threat.

Violent black cyclone clouds hover, promising a storm of devastating proportions as student Claire Danvers and her friends prepare to defend Morganville against elements both natural and unnatural.

REVIEW: JOHNNY ALUCARD by Kim Newman

Title: Johnny Alucard
Author:  Kim Newman
Series: Anno Dracula
Genres: Vampires, Horror, Historical fiction
Publisher: Titan Books
Release: September 17th 2013
Source: Hardback
Pages: 400

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BLURB:

DRACULA COMES TO NEW YORK: Kim Newman returns to one of the great bestselling vampire tales of the modern era. Considered alongside I Am Legend and Interview with theVampire as one of the stand-out vampire stories of the last century - this brand-new novel is the first in over a decade from the remarkable and influential Anno Dracula series.

Newman’s dark and impish tale begins with a single question: What if Dracula had survived his encounters with Bram Stoker’s Dr. John Seward and enslaved Victorian England?

Fallen from grace and driven from the British Empire in previous instalments, Dracula seems long gone. A relic of the past. Yet, when vampire boy Johnny Alucard descends upon America, stalking the streets of New York and Hollywood, haunting the lives of the rich and famous, from Sid and Nancy to Andy Warhol, Orson Welles, and Francis Ford Coppola, sinking his fangs ever deeper into the zeitgeist of 1980s America, it seems the past might not be dead after all.

 

REVIEW: DRACULA CHA CHA CHA by Kim Newman

Title: Dracula Cha Cha Cha
Author:  Kim Newman
Series: Anno Dracula
Genres: Vampires, Horror, Historical fiction
Publisher: Titan Books
Release: October 9th 2012
Source: Paperback
Pages: 480

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BLURB:

Written by award-winning novelist Kim Newman, this is a brand-new edition, with additional 40,000 word never-before-seen novella, of the popular third installment of the Anno Dracula series, Dracula Cha Cha Cha.

Rome. 1959. Count Dracula is about to marry the Moldavian Princess Asa Vajda - his sixth wife. Journalist Kate Reed flies into the city to visit the ailing Charles Beauregard and his vampire companion Geneviève. Finding herself caught up in the mystery of the Crimson Executioner who is bloodily dispatching vampire elders in the city, Kate discovers that she is not the only one on his trail...

 

REVIEW: THE BLOODY RED BARON by Kim Newman

Title: The Bloody Red Baron
Author:  Kim Newman
Series: Anno Dracula
Genres: Vampires, Horror, Historical fiction
Publisher: Titan Books
Release: April 10th 2012
Source: Paperback
Pages: 587

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BLURB:

WAR IS HELL...

It is 1918 and Graf von Dracula is commander-in-chief of the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The War of the Great Powers in Europe is also a war between the living and the undead. Caught up in the conflict, Charles Beauregard, an old enemy of Dracula, his protegé Edwin Winthrop, and intrepid vampire reporter Kate Reed go head-to-head with the lethal vampire flying machine that is the Bloody Red Baron... In the brand-new novella Vampire Romance, Geneviève Dieudonné, newly returned to England, infiltrates a singular vampire gathering in the service of the Diogenes Club.

A brand-new edition, with additional novella, of the critically acclaimed, bestselling sequel to Anno Dracula. Written by popular novelist and movie critic Kim Newman, The Bloody Red Baron takes the story into the 20th century.

 

REVIEW: ANNO DRACULA by Kim Newman

Title: Anno Dracula
Author:  Kim Newman
Series: Anno Dracula
Genres: Vampires, Horror, Historical fiction
Publisher: Titan Books
Release: May 24th 2011
Source: Paperback
Pages: 547

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It is 1888 and Queen Victoria has remarried, taking as her new consort Vlad Tepes, the Wallachian Prince infamously known as Count Dracula. Peppered with familiar characters from Victorian history and fiction, the novel follows vampire Geneviève Dieudonné and Charles Beauregard of the Diogenes Club as they strive to solve the mystery of the Ripper murders.

Anno Dracula is a rich and panoramic tale, combining horror, politics, mystery and romance to create a unique and compelling alternate history. Acclaimed novelist Kim Newman explores the darkest depths of a reinvented Victorian London.

This brand-new edition of the bestselling novel contains unique bonus material, including a new afterword from Kim Newman, annotations, articles and alternate endings to the original novel.

REVIEW: PRINCESS DRACULA by John Patrick Kennedy

Title: Princess Dracula
Author:  John Patrick Kennedy
Series: Princess Dracula
Genres: Horror, Fantasy
Publisher: Kindle Press
Release: January 17th, 2017
Source: eBook
Pages: 203

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BLURB:
All power comes at a price…

Ruxandra learned everything she knows while growing up in a convent. Training to be the perfect nobleman’s wife, she relishes the prospect of a simple life. But everything changes when her father, Vlad Dracula, retrieves her on her eighteenth birthday. Securing her a marriage is the last thing he has in mind…

After he performs a mysterious ritual over her, Ruxandra gains uncontrollable supernatural powers. Alone, terrified, and faced with an unknown future, she is left to forge a new life for herself. There’s only one thing she knows: if she doesn’t learn to control her unnatural instincts, she’ll destroy every last shred of her humanity.

Princess Dracula is the first book in a dark fantasy horror series. If you like crisp writing, emotional gravitas, and intriguing retellings of classic tales, then you’ll love John Patrick Kennedy’s new twist on vampire lore.

REVIEW: CARMILLA by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Title: Carmilla
Author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Series: -
Genres: Classics, Vampires
Publisher: Wildside Press
Release: 1872
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 108

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BLURB:
A classic Victorian vampire novella, which influenced Bram Stoker's later treatment of the vampire mythos in Dracula.

REVIEW: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE PLAGUE OF DRACULA by Stephen Seitz

Title: Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula
Author: Stephen Seitz
Series: -
Genres: Horror, Vampires, Mystery
Publisher: MX Publishing
Release: 2012 May 28th
Source: eBook
Pages: 204

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BLURB:
Bram Stoker's "Dracula" told only part of the story. "Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula" recounts the Great Detective's search for Jonathan Harker, his confrontation with the Count, the truth behind the Great Hiatus, and Dracula's terrible legacy.

After Mina Murray asks Sherlock Holmes to locate her fiancee, Holmes and Watson travel to a land far eerier than the moors they had known when pursuing the Hound of the Baskervilles. The confrontation with Count Dracula threatens Holmes' health, his sanity, and his life. Will Holmes survive his battle with Count Dracula?

FAVORITE VAMPIRES

REVIEW: HEMLOCK GROVE by Brian McGreevy

Title: Hemlock Grove
Author: Brian McGreevy
Series:  Hemlock Grove #1
Genres: Horror, Fantasy
Publisher:  FSG Originals
Release: 2012 March 27th
Source: eBook
Pages:  319p

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BLURB:
An exhilarating reinvention of the gothic novel, inspired by the iconic characters of our greatest myths and nightmares.

The body of a young girl is found mangled and murdered in the woods of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, in the shadow of the abandoned Godfrey Steel mill. A manhunt ensues—though the authorities aren’t sure if it’s a man they should be looking for.

Some suspect an escapee from the White Tower, a foreboding biotech facility owned by the Godfrey family—their personal fortune and the local economy having moved on from Pittsburgh steel—where, if rumors are true, biological experiments of the most unethical kind take place. Others turn to Peter Rumancek, a Gypsy trailer-trash kid who has told impressionable high school classmates that he’s a werewolf. Or perhaps it’s Roman, the son of the late JR Godfrey, who rules the adolescent social scene with the casual arrogance of a cold-blooded aristocrat, his superior status unquestioned despite his decidedly freakish sister, Shelley, whose monstrous medical conditions belie a sweet intelligence, and his otherworldly control freak of a mother, Olivia.

At once a riveting mystery and a fascinating revelation of the grotesque and the darkness in us all, Hemlock Grove has the architecture and energy to become a classic in its own right—and Brian McGreevy the talent and ambition to enthrall us for years to come. 

REVIEW: ONCE BURNED by Jeaniene Frost

Title: Once Burned
Author: Jeaniene Frost
Series: Night Prince #1
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Avon
Release: June 26th, 2012
Source: eBook
Pages: 346

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BLURB:
After a tragic accident scarred her body and destroyed her dreams, Leila never imagined that the worst was still to come: terrifying powers that let her channel electricity and learn a person's darkest secrets through a single touch. Leila is doomed to a life of solitude...until creatures of the night kidnap her, forcing her to reach out with a telepathic distress call to the world's most infamous vampire...
He's the Prince of Night...
Vlad Tepesh inspired the greatest vampire legend of all—but whatever you do, don't call him Dracula. Vlad's ability to control fire makes him one of the most feared vampires in existence, but his enemies have found a new weapon against him—a beautiful mortal with powers to match his own. When Vlad and Leila meet, however, passion ignites between them, threatening to consume them both. It will take everything that they are to stop an enemy intent on bringing them down in flames.