I remember reading this book as a teen and it changed my view of vampires from would-be-frightening to downright enigmatic. This was also around the time when I moved away from the tween series and into more YA. I found this book in the library and just thought it fell into the YA genre. It did not, it was way beyond my years and now that I'm rereading this book, I have a deeper appreciation for how it changed my literary platter and veered me into mystery, sweeping beauty, prose and ultimately awakened my ability to actually visualize things beyond my comprehension.

I am excited to be going through the series once more. ( )

La oscura y sensual historia jamás revelada en "Drácula" de Bram Stoker
Esos ojos me recorrieron con una intensidad depredadora que me hizo temblar, sentí frío, como si una repentina corriente de aire hubiera entrado en la sala, y pensé: está hambriento, terriblemente hambriento...
Sobre un montículo cubierto de hierba en los Cárpatos, un joven recién llegado de Londres se encuentra junto al panteón familiar. Lo que ve es una profanación indescriptible, un crimen contra su padre y la familia Dracul.
Un periodista inglés desaparece en un antiguo castillo; mientras, una joven aguarda el ilícito abrazo de su tío abuelo, el príncipe Vlad.
En una tierra de supersticiones y fe se ha mantenido un pacto maligno durante años. Ahora el joven Arkady Tsepesh ha regresado para heredar ese pacto, para conocer las oscuras verdades que se apoderarán de su alma y de todo lo que ama...

Covenant with the Vampire is the beginning of a trilogy of books that serve as both prequel to Bram Stoker's Dracula as well as serve as a gap filler. Who are the Vampire Brides? Who is Van Helsing and what is his connection to Dracula? Why does Dracula seek to come to England? This series attempts to answer those questions and more, and is off to a fantastic start. It is chilling, with the same level of eroticism the original novel had (just updated for modern standards), and thoroughly entertaining.

The only criticism I can level against it is that it's an epistolary novel, written in journals and diaries just as the original Dracula is. That format served the more placid Dracula well, but this novel has a lot more action and a lot more suspense in it, and the effects of those actions are undermined by the journal format. Sometimes the journals feel too vivid, as if we're experiencing it in real time, and sometimes the journals feel like a bit of a stretch, such as when a character is convinced that he is mad spending time writing things out in proper English? One of the final actions in the climax of the book is rendered suspenseless by the journal format, as it takes place in the character's own journal so that the reader immediately knows that the event can't move towards the ending the writer is suggesting.

That's just a minor complaint about the book. Every fan of Dracula should do themselves a service and read this series. ( )

I really, really, REALLY wanted to like this book but I found it such a chore to read. If you take a look at the excerpt, the format is in diary form, alternating between Arkady, his wife, Mary and his sister, Zsuzsanna. So it's more of a narrative, detailing their observations, thoughts and experiences in detail than anything which I found that tiresome. I found myself skimming the pages furiously and gleaning through the dialogue just to speed up the story. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/1995/07/covenant-with-vampire-jeanne-kalogridis.ht... ( )