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Title | Covenant With The Vampire
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Author | Jeanne Kalogridis
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Delacorte Press - 1994
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Title | Children of the Vampire
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Author | Jeanne Kalogridis
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Cover Art | Bob Larkin
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Publisher | Delacorte Press - 1995
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First Printing | ---
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Title | Lord of the Vampires
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Author | Jeanne Kalogridis
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Delacorte Press - 1996
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First Printing | ---
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Category | Horror
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Warnings | Blood, sexual situation (including homosexual and necrophilia), torture
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Main Characters | Vlad Tsepesh [Dracula], Arkady Tsepesh, Abraham Van Helsing, Elisabeth Bathory
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Main Elements | Vampires
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Website | JeanneKalogridis.com
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Covenant with the Vampire
In her incredibly accomplished fiction debut, Jeanne Kalogridis takes on one of the most compelling and terrifying classics ever written, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Dark, sensual and charged with suspense, Covenant with the Vampire reveal the mysteries behind Dracula, transforming it into a piece of a puzzle that is much larger, more complex, and more compelling than anyone might have imagined.
Beginning fifty years before the start of Bram Stoker's novel, Covenant with the Vampire introduces us to Dracula's family, who are bound by a covenant as ancient as their blood to serve Dracula and to protect him. At the castle of Prince Vlad Tsepesh, also known as Dracula, Vlad's great-nephew Arkady has recently taken over the job of managing the thriving, busy estate. Arkady is honored to care for his beloved though eccentric great-uncle...until he begins to realize what is expected of him in his new role.
Either he provides his great-uncle with victims to satisfy his needs, or Vlad will kill those Arkady loves. He is trapped into becoming a party to murder and sadistic torture. And it is in his blood. When Arkady learns that his newborn son is being groomed to follow one day in his footsteps, he know that he must fight Dracula, even if it means his death.
The first installment in a rich historical trilogy that will span the fifty years before Dracula and finally overlap with the events in that book, Covenant with the Vampire reveals secrets that will shock and delight readers of the original. Written in the diary form, like Dracula, Covenant with the Vampire is the erotic, compulsively readable debut of a major new voice in vampire fiction.
Children of the Vampire
With Covenant with the Vampire, Jeanne Kalogridis launched a thrilling new vampire trilogy that takes on one of the most intriguing horror classics of all time - Bram Stoker's Dracula. Haunting, sensuous, and compulsively readable, this debut novel was published to much critical acclaim, and established Kalogridis as a major new voice in vampire fiction. Now Children of the Vampire, the dark and stylishly erotic second book in the series, delves ever deeper into the terrifying mysteries behind Dracula.
It is Amsterdam, 1871, twenty-five years before the start of Stoker's novel, and twenty-five years following Arkady's Tsepesh's flight from his family's ancestral castle with his wife and young son, Stefan, after learning that he and his family are bound by an ancient covenant to serve their ancestor, Prince Vlad Tsepesh, who is also know as Dracula. For Vlad is a vampire, and the fated firstborn sons in every generation must bring him the victims he needs to survive. Arkady tried to break the covenant and failed. He is now a vampire, separated form his beloved wife and son, with one all-consuming desire - to destroy Vlad before he draws Stefan into eternal service though the blood ritual.
But Arkady has come too late to Amsterdam. Vlad kidnaps Stefan, and spirits him away to the castle in Transylvania to undergo the blood ritual. Arkady enlists the help of Stefan's stepbrother, Abraham Van Helsing, in his thrilling battle against Vlad, as he seeks to free his family and put an end to the age-old blood covenant - even it if means he must destroy his own son.
This spellbinding book, rich in historical detail and told in diary form, like Dracula, is an exciting - and terrifying - continuation of The Diaries of the Family Dracul, the absorbing trilogy that will serve as a prequel to Bram Stoker's chilling tale. With Children of the Vampire, Jeanne Kalogridis penetrates even deeper into the secrets behind Dracula, illuminating this classic novel in a vivid, compelling, and utterly memorable way.
Lord of the Vampires
Lord of the Vampires is the extraordinary conclusion to Jeanne Kalogridis' much touted, highly acclaimed trilogy The Diaries of the Family Dracul. Covenant with the Vampire and Children of the Vampire set the tone for this lush, erotic, compulsively readable series that explores the mysteries behind Bram Stoker's classic novel Dracula.
After the death of his half brother Stefan, at the hands of Vlad Tsepesh - also known as Dracula - and after the destruction of his vampire father, Arkady, also at the hands of Vlad, Abraham Van Helsing has traveled the world slaying many vampires. With every vampire he destroys, Bram becomes stronger and Vlad weaker, and soon Bram hopes to kill finally the fearsome vampire who has kept the Tsepesh family enslaved through a centuries-old blood ritual.
But a desperate Vlad and his vampire grand-niece, Zsuzsanna, summon help from the most powerful, brutal, and beautiful vampire of all - Countess Elisabeth of Bathory. Bram aligns himself with a courageous band of humans as he hunts Vlad and they finally succeed in killing the head of the Tsepesh clan, just as Bram Stoker foretold in Dracula. But the terror does not end with the death of Vlad, for there is another force that drives Vlad, Zsuzsanna, Elisabeth and all vampires in the world, an ancient entity more evil than anything Bram has ever encountered: the lord of the vampires. And for Bram to defeat this Dark Lord, he must once again risk losing his very soul, to save not only his family, but humanity as well.
In this final book in the trilogy of The Diaries of the Family Dracul, Kalogridis brilliantly melds her own fascinating story of the Tsepesh family with that of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Told in the diary form like the frist two books and Stoker's own chilling tale, Lord of the Vampires reveal the dark, startling truths behind the original Dracula.
I truly enjoyed Covenant with the Vampire. I loved the careful details Kalogridis added to the story that most authors either ignore or get wrong. Yes, Dracula could go out by daylight if he wanted to! But there is much more to it than that. During much of the novel one is torn between knowing the true nature of the vampiric monster, and the kindness and love he displays to his family. To them, he is the doting, eccentric uncle that lives in the ancestral castle of their family. As it is written in journal format, we see him through the eyes of his family, niece Zsuzsanna, her brother Arkady and his wife Mary. Each see the Prince from a very different point of view, and each comes to their own conclusion. Coming to your own conclusions can be quite hard as you are tempted to believe what the diary keepers want to believe. You are tempted to give the Prince the benefit of the doubt, that Stoker was actually wrong about him. But it the back of you mind, something warns you otherwise...
Children of the Vampire is also good, but I did not enjoy it as much as the first. There are some interesting twists and turns to keep one interested the whole way through. Here we learn how the vampire moves unseen and unheard, how they mesmerize humans, and how humans hunt them. Perhaps too much of the mystery and magic of the vampire were explained, but the concept was an interesting one.
Lord of the Vampires ranks higher for me than Children, but Covenant was still the best as far as I'm concerned. It felt a little rushed at times, as it tried to keep pace with the events in Dracula (which took a book in itself to relate) and explain things which never got explained in Stoker's novel. Add to that the additional character of Elizabeth and one had a lot going on in a short period of time.
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