Monster Mash: Vampires

Because October is the spookiest month, we thought we'd offer a week full of monsters and mayhem. Each post this week will feature a different creature of the night to give you chills as you huddle beneath your covers. But don't worry, the sun'll come out tomorrow. At least I hope it will.

Anno Dracula
By Kim Newman

Fast-paced and blood-soaked, this alternate history imagines what would have happened if Dracula had not been stopped by Van Helsing and the Harkers as he was in Bram Stoker's novel. In this story Dracula rises to power, bringing Queen Victoria under his thrall. As Prince Consort he begins reforming England in his image, with vampirism spreading throughout the land. Some of the new vampires are just as bloodthirsty as Dracula himself. As a new draconian legal system cracks down on the populace, Jack the Ripper begins killing vampires in Whitechapel and the hunt is on to stop this killer before he causes the tensions in London to boil over.

This is a book chock full of literary and historical references. Bram Stoker is in it along with the characters he created. Oscar Wilde walks the same streets as Sherlock Holmes and a few thousand Victorian vampires. This is a horror novel for the literate and the thrill-hungry.

And better yet, it's a series!

To request this book click the cover or title above.

Review by Danny Hanbery