Pertaining To The Historian

In Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, a young woman finds a mysterious packet of letters in her father's study. When she demands an explanation from him, he begins, bit by bit, to tell her a strange story concerning an old book, a professor of his... and Dracula. As the mystery gradually becomes clear, the young woman finds herself ever more deeply entangled in a desperate mission that could end with her or one of her loved ones as a dead body. Or an undead body.

Pros: The story was very interesting and kept me reading. There were some unexpected twists. I rather like the father, though I think the daughter is a total idiot.

Cons: Kostova used two strategies to build suspense. I think she failed at both. 1) The book is over six hundred pages long. If she had eliminated unnecessary details and descriptions, it could have been three hundred pages and a lot more fast-paced and exciting. 2) It jumps from letters to stories to present time, with four different people narrating at different times. Only masterful writers can use this technique to their advantage; it only works when the reader leaves an interesting/cliff-hanger part of the story to go to another interesting/cliff-hanger part of the story. Switching from an interesting part of the story to go to a dull part of the story does not work. 

My Rating: MT (evil vampires, moderate sexual content)

Picture from coverbrowser.com