The Historian
by: Elizabeth Kostova

Published: 2005

# of pages: 720


I didn't know what to expect from this book, but I was pleased with what I discovered. This is a great classic vampire book. It isn't filled with sexuality and bad language, it's just a good suspense novel that is also a unique historical fiction book.

The story is crazy with the many different characters and how the time line jumps back and forth. However, the main character and narrator is a 16 year old girl who discovers a strange book in her father's library. After that, her life is never the same as she learns about her father's strange past that includes mystery, love, adventure, and vampires.

The book centers around Dracula and includes a lot of historical facts about the man the character Dracula is based on. The book has several settings - including America, Amsterdam, Britain, Istanbul, Romania, and Bulgaria. I wonder how many of the things mentioned in the book are true (like about the search for Dracula's tomb, historical events, etc). I also wonder how many of the places are real. Maybe they are all real, I'll have to do more research to figure it out.

The book refers to the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker regularly, so that may be worth reading before picking up this novel, but isn't necessary to read first. I also thought it was interesting that the novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy was briefly referred to, but once again, it isn't necessary to read that to understand the reference.

This is a very long book, but it mostly held my attention. I have to admit, in the 3rd quarter of the book I became a little bogged down. However, it may have been because I only had time to read it in short spurts. Maybe it wouldn't have dragged if I could have devoted longer periods of time to reading it. It was definitely worth continuing to read it though and I highly recommend this book to lovers of historical fiction and/or the vampire genre.


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