Covenant With The Vampire: The Diaries of the Family Dracul

Covenant With The Vampire: The Diaries of the Family Dracul

By Jeanne Kalogridis

Delacourt Press

ISBN: 0-385-31313-6

3.75 stars

Arkady Tsepesh is returning home to Romania with his pregnant wife, Mary, for the burial of his father. Having lived in London for many years, he is both excited and saddened by the trip. On one hand, he wants to share his life with Mary and introduce her to his sister and uncle, and on the other, he is heartbroken over the loss of his father whom he has not seen for many years.

Mary takes an immediate liking to Arkady’s sister, Zsuzsanna, who is sickly and crippled but a very kind soul. When Zsuzsanna becomes increasingly ill, Mary worries for her. When she finds out the cause of her sickness, she is disturbed in ways she never imagined. Worried for her husband, and with grave doubts about a member of his family, Mary finds her marriage strained. With the pending delivery of their child, she also fears for their lives. Arkady spends much time in denial, until the final moments when he comes face to face with the reality that is his family and what is to become of his life.

Told through diary entries as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you get to experience the emotions of several characters at once and see the story told from different points of view. While I don’t think that anything new is added to the telling her, it is an interesting take on the Dracul family dynamics. The diary entries are interesting for their revelations but they feel very familiar. I don’t consider that bad, but if you’ve read any number of vampire books with the original Dracula character, I think in many ways they all begin to feel the same. It was still an interesting read and Kalogridis’s style brings a fresh voice to the story.

Well, I spent my October looking for a new vampire book and while this one came along in November, I still found it a good read. I enjoy Kalogridis’s writing style and I liked the new additions to the family she added which gave an often-told tale an interesting twist.