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Jul 27, 2011

Misty rated it:

4-ish.

Dracula in Love isn't just a fill-in-the-gaps retelling of Dracula, fleshing out the story from Mina's point of view. No, it is a sort of feminist retelling in which Mina asserts that the story that everyone knows, the story that's been told by men, is false. True to their Victorian beliefs and morés, the men have cast the women of the story as either saints of harridans, relegating them to sidelines to seethe or swoon as they may. But thinking, feeling, intelligent Mi More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2012

M— rated it:

Beach Vacation Read #6: My habit of borrowing any ebook that sounds remotely interesting does not always pay off. DNF.

This is dire. It starts off with high purple prose in its pseudo-Victorian way, and it only gets worse from there. The heroine is sexually assaulted by page 11 and spends half her time during the assault fretting about what other people, in particular her fiancé, would think of her morals:

In my mind, I saw Jonathan receive the news, his stricken face turning white, shyi

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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2011

Jenny rated it:

First off, the title is misleading. There is no love involved in this story. There's a lot of lust, but no evidence of stronger feelings. And since this is told in Mina's first-person POV, we don't get to know Dracula or his feelings at all. I wanted to put this down around page 50 after reading an awful, cringe-worthy description of masturbation, but I felt obligated to keep reading. The whole novel is like one long mindtrip, and in the end it just didn't make a lot of sense to me--and there we More...

5 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jul 08, 2011

Book Flame rated it:

Karen Essex did an incredible job retelling Bram Stokers Dracula. Dracula In Love was told from Mina's perspective, and I loved it just as much as the original.

Review from www.bookflame.blogspot.com

The first half of the novel was a lot of background information on Mina, which I found interesting. The novel really picked up for me when we got to the asylum. I was reading Dracula In Love in the middle of the night so yes, I was slightly creeped out but couldn't stop myself More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Slayermel rated it:

I really enjoyed this story. It is a retelling of Bram Stokers Dracula but from the perspective of Mina. Apparently the true story was covered up by certain men in the story to hide their dastardly deeds. I really enjoyed the spin on the story and it made me look at some of the characters differently :0)

It really wasn’t farfetched to see women put into the rolls of the mentally imbalanced for that period of time just for having sexual cravings or feelings of lust and love. I tho More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2012

Rebecca rated it:

Oh, what I can I say? I didn't like this one at all, despite the author trying very very hard to come up with a new angle on the Dracula story. If I had not read this on my nook, I would have made a deep hole in the living room wall with it.

For the complete review, please go here:
http://www.epinions.com/review/Karen_Ess...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 18, 2011

Rusty rated it:

Truly enjoyed this read. At first I was unsure as the book seemed to be a bit slow getting started but as the story unfolded I found myself eagerly turning the pages. This tale encourages me to return to Dracula by Bram Stoker which I put down after about 100 pages because I couldn't get into it and/or my imagination was getting the best of me. Or, perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for it. At any rate Karen Essex explains how she came to be intrigued by Mina to write this tale. She found the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 04, 2012

Flora rated it:

This book tells the story of Dracula from Mina Harker's perspective. As the story unfolds you see the connection between Mina and the Count unfold from the time she was little til he revealed himself when she was older. We learn of their life together not only in this time setting but also in the past. How they have been connected over many lifetimes as soul mates. It was a love that didn't know the boundaries of time. We also see the cultural changes taking place with women during this time in More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 27, 2011

Christina (Reading Thru The Night) rated it:

The Short of It

Every story has many different perspectives.

The Long of It

Dracula, oh how I loved thee. Seriously. I’m sure you’re familiar with the story. It’s eerie. It’s all about Otherness. And maybe some love. With a bit of chivalry and propriety thrown in for Victorian sprinkles. I’ll not recap it, but you can read it for free here (amongst many other places). Move along please.

The Thoughts about It

I find myself being completely on the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 06, 2011

Kristina rated it:

This was an odd book. I read the author notes and the author wanted to explore the Dracula story from the woman's point of view because apparently Bram Stoker portrays women in a bad light in his novel. I have not read Bram Stoker's Dracula so I cannot comment on that. I will admit to skimming much of the book and only stopping to read what interested me. I found the endless details of Min's life as a school teacher boring and her friends boring and the whole interlude with Lucy and her secret l More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Christina rated it:

It wasn't that bad but it wasn't that great either. The book moved really slowly at times and I found myself skimming some parts which is something I only do when I just want to get to the end! I did like the character of Mina, but most of the characters were really different than I had imagined when I first read Dracula. So, I was pretty lukewarm on just about everyone. I can say that I really thought the mood of the book was based much more on Coppola's movie than it was on Stoker's origina More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 08, 2011

Amy (SpedBug) rated it:

The dustcover of this book promises "Karen Essex breathes startling new life into the characters of Bram Stoker's Dracula." While it's true her novel is a retelling of the Dracula story from Mina Murray's point of view, there's nothing startling or lively about her characters.

I was intrigued at first, reading through a few chapters with hopeful enthusiasm. Fifty pages in, I was both disatisfied and bored. The only thing 'startling' about the book were a few egregious sexua More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2011

Janellyn51 rated it:

I enjoyed Dracula in Love. Karen Essex has been having an online discussion that I was a part of, and I really enjoyed having the opportunity to "talk" with her. I hadn't read Dracula in Love yet, but had read Stealing Athena, which stayed with me for a long time. Stealing Athena is historical fiction...Dracula In Love, you could almost say is historical fiction as well, given how eternal Dracula and Vampire lore is embedded in the minds of generation after generation. This is a differ More...

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Aug 01, 2011

Tori Benson rated it:

Dracula In Love is a retelling of the original classic from a female perspective-Mina Harker. We learn that "Dracula" has been waiting for Mina through out the centuries; watching and waiting through each reincarnation for her to remember and finally choose him. Yet with each new life, she chooses another path that takes her from him. I admire the fact that he tells and shows her each and every time their past and always allows her a choice.
Myth and legend is rebuilt with a libe More...

1 comment like

Jul 26, 2011

Geraldine rated it:

This is a terrible book. Not only is it derivative in concept and lacking in style, but it's also incredibly lazy. If you're going to write a faux-Victorian novel then I would think it wise to do at least some very basic research first, in order that it isn't full of glaring errors. With the best will in the world, even if the book had been otherwise fantastic it would have been hard not to laugh at an Anglo-Irish Victorian lady shouting at Dracula "Quit following me!", or the sight of More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 21, 2011

Theresa rated it:

Everyone remembers Bram Stoker's "Dracula". It was a tale of horror and everyone knew that vampires were the "bad guys". But were they? Karen Essex takes Stoker's tale and gives it a twist. Following the same timeline, using the same characters and written in much of the same format "Dracula in Love" gives a total different view.

In the Prologue of the book, Mina Murray Harker states:

"Unlike most people whose lives remain private, my stor More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 10, 2011

Jules rated it:

Bram Stoker's Dracula was one of those books (and movies) that stuck with me for a long time. When I was given the opportunity to read and review a story that was to be from Mina's point of view, I couldn't resist. I had always felt that she was slighted by Stoker and that his disdain for women was quite clear in the book.

Karen Essex has given us a fresh view of Mina and her world. She has created the heroine that most of us would have wanted to see in the original version. In sp More...

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Jul 02, 2011

Rachel rated it:

In the author's note to Dracula in Love, Karen Essex asks her readers to take the book "in the spirit of fun and adventure in which it was written". Which I do - it is a clever book, better written than I could have expected, and very thoughtful. I appreciate it - I appreciate what Essex is doing, the very intelligent way in which she is lovingly dialoguing with her source text. This is a legitimately good novel, despite the ill-suited Proust allusion of the title which makes it sound More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 08, 2011

Beth rated it:

As a huge fan of the original Dracula by Bram Stoker (it being the book I learned how to work a CD player for as a pre-teen so I could sew whilst listening!), I noticed this book with interest … and also more than a little worry. The combined power of gorgeous cover and story from another view point (two things I generally enjoy), however, soon won me over enough to pick up a copy and delve inside.

Miss Mina Murray is introduced as an Irish schoolmistress, a 22-year-old who rose to beco More...

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Apr 05, 2011

Larissa rated it:

Mina is a woman on the verge of obtaining all that she has ever wanted. Soon to be married, she and her fiancé Jonathan have already planed out how their future lives together will be, where they will marry, the location of their first home and even the names of their children. Everything was perfect, then the dreams began. But these were no ordinary dreams being as vivid as waking life and Mina begins to question not only her life but also her sanity.

Meanwhile, Jonathan is called away More...

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Jan 27, 2011

Cleverly rated it:

The symphonious writing flowed through every page of Dracula In Love. The pull of the words were luring and enrapturing. If you love the "real" vampire's you will receive ample amounts. I am a Twilight lover, nevertheless I still love where it has all began. I feel real vampire's have more to them than sparkles.
The way Mina's character transpired right off the pages was a wonder. I could see the way Feminism played a role, But I don't feel it was overwhelming. I felt the More...

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Jan 24, 2011

Monster added it

When an author chooses to write a retelling of a well-known work from a different point of view, there are two camps of readers that must be satisfied: the author's fans and the fans of the original work. Karen Essex, I believe, manages to appease both, albeit clumsily at times, with Dracula in Love, a creative rendering of Bram Stoker's Dracula, told from Mina Murray Harker's perspective.

In this novel, Mina is a teacher in Victorian England who sometimes experiences the extraordinary More...

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Dec 26, 2010

ALPHAreader rated it:

Historical novelist extraordinaire, Karen Essex, takes Stoker’s story and infuses new life into the old work.

The story opens with a promise from Mina Harker to the reader. The year is 1897, and in the wake of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ story being released, Mina wants to set the record straight and tell her side of events, lest Stoker’s fanciful imagination carry the truth away with time and embellishment. . .

The year is 1890, and Mina Murray (soon to be Harker) awaits the retur More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 11, 2010

Elizabeth rated it:

I absolutely loved this new take on the old Dracula tale. It had been so long since I read the original and I didn’t quite remember everything in it. But I like the way that Karen Essex put a whole new spin on the book. She too what was already a great supernatural book changed the POV and took it even more into the supernatural world.
I will admit that in the first hundred pages I was not sure that she was going to pull off a very good book. It was written very slow and not much had More...

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Sep 03, 2010

Jeannie rated it:

Take Out the Filler and Add Some Focus! Two star review.

Dracula in Love by Karen Essex, for me, was the second failed attempt at reading one of this author's books. I had tried Leonardo's Swans and was not able to get interested in it, and this new release by Essex was no different. I was really looking forward to a good vampire book with a new Dracula twist. However, I found this book so full of filler, pages and pages of rambling thoughts and topics going nowhere, and a stro More...

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Sep 01, 2010

Stephanie rated it:

"In the beginning there was the voice.

"That was how it began on that first evening, with a masculine voice calling out to me in my sleep; a disembodied voice slithering into my dream, a voice of deep timbre and tones, of sensuous growls, and of low, hollow moans--a voice laden with promise and with love. It was as familiar to me as my own, and yet I knew not where it came from inside my head, from outside of me, or from somewhere not of this earth. Hushed like wind through More...

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Aug 29, 2010

Sari rated it:

Before I begin I must make it clear that I received this book from the author in exchange for a fair and honest review. I found this title on Shelf Awareness and want to thank Karen Essex for sending it to me.

On the back of the book one review reads “if you read only one more vampire novel, let it be this one”. I say if you read only one more literary novel, let it be this one. Dracula in love is a masterpiece .Not only does it turn the classic tale on its head, at times it reads m More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2010

Brenda rated it:

The author has written a fresh perspective on Bram Stoker's Dracula in which she tells the story from Mina Harker's point of view. Mina is portrayed as a very strong character in this story. Since childhood Mina had suffered from bouts of sleepwalking as well as strange visions and dreams, sometimes the they were terrifying and other times very erotic, and a haunting figure keeps appearing in her dreams, and for some unexplainable reason she is strongly attracted to him. We are teased for ove More...

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Aug 17, 2010

Karen rated it:

In DRACULA IN LOVE, Karen Essex has given readers a Gothic adventure of a very well known character and put a new spin on it. Taking the characters from the classic Bram Stoker Dracula novel, she has used extensive research to write a seductive and beautifully crafted new version from a totally different point of view-that of the female, Mina Murray. In Stoker’s novel, Mina Murray is the traditionally proper Victorian fiancé of Dracula’s lawyer, Jonathan Harker, and Mina becomes the innocent tar More...

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Aug 08, 2010

Marissa rated it:

Since I have read Bram Stoker's Dracula I thought I was familiar with the story of Mina Murray and her husband Johnathon Harker, and how the Count comes between them, but I was wrong. Dracula in Love is an amazing story from Mina's point of view.

Dracula in Love sets the record straight about Mina and relives what really happened, starting with her engagement to Johnathon and going from there.

I enjoyed the story about Mina's friend Lucy who was admitted to the asylum D More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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