Arguably this summer’s most-hyped book was Elizabeth Kostova’s THE HISTORIAN. From that start, it was plugged as “the next DA VINCI CODE,” which makes no sense to me since the subjects are entirely unrelated and the level of writing is on another plane entirely.
I mean, no disrespect to the mega-popular CODE (I like it, too!), but it’s a microwave pancake compared to Kostova’s loaded omelet. THE HISTORIAN was an immediate bestseller and deserves to be, because it’s a solid, dense read, offering a literary twist on Bram Stoker’s legendary Dracula.
The book assumes that Vlad the Impaler – the historical figure Dracula was based on – really was a vampire and, despite being beheaded, never died. A 16-year-old girl searches Europe for her professor father when he mysteriously disappears after revealing to her his life’s work of hunting Dracula down. As she recounts via his letters and journal entries, it’s a mission that has gone on for generations and centuries.
Weighing in at more than 600 pages, THE HISTORIAN is one of those books in which you can immerse yourself, and this one is a satisfying mix of highbrow historical horror, adventure and mystery, richly written and detailed. It’ll make a hell of a movie someday, but it’s a hell of a book as is.
{ 10 trackbacks }
{ 0 comments… add one now }