This book took way too long to read. It wasn't a bad book, but it didn't grip me and pull me into the story. For a book this size it needs to really entangle me so I get completely wrapped up in the story and can't put the book down. Instead it was full of little climaxes that quickly died back. My main problem with the book being that the author told the tale from so many different points of view, but that they were each told in first person without giving the reader any notice as to who was telling the tale. Considering each story within the whole takes place with different people in different time pierods, I would often have to go back and reread the first couple of sentences in each transition paragraph so I could fix the setting and the characters in my mind. I don't understand why this book is on the bestseller's list, I think right now it is number four in the fictional bestsellers at B&N. I find myself thinking of my mother's comment after she read the Da Vinci Code, that it was ok but she knew many other books that were written much better that should be best sellers. I wish Brien had read the book at the same time as I did, I would liked to have talked to him about it. My one big question, relates to why on earth Dracula would give these books to scholars (I'd figured out that it was he early on) and then start killing people close to that scholar when they would research the book and Dracula. He wanted them to find him, but at the same time would try to stop them from searching for him. I know that Brien would have an excellent reason for this. For now I can only assume that Dracula wanted only the truely convicted to follow him, that he didn't want any half harted attempts nor any imbicles to find him. He was never in any real danger from these humans, so why threaten them? And why did he call himself 'Dracula'? I'd always thought that was more of a family name and that it wasn't until Bram Stoker wrote his book that people quit calling him by his given name. In my own book I would have made "Dracula's" introduction more like, "I am Vladimir (of the house of Drakul), the man you would call Dracula." After all would he really be walking around telling everyone his name was this form an Irish man made up?