Books: Dracula My Love

Mina Harker reboot of Stoker’s Dracula novel shows why girls go ga-ga for Dracula *** 3 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 7/23/2010 - “One day it occurred to me, what if Mina’s journal entries weren’t the entire truth?” says Dracula My Love author Syrie James.  “What if Dracula only appeared as an old man to the men in the story, but to the women he wished to woo, he appeared in his youngest and most attractive form…just as the female vampires at his castle appeared to Jonathan as ravishing beauties?”

Dracula My Love is told from the point of view of Mina Harker and her obsession with Nicolae Dracula. The male characters are held to the plot of the original while we learn more about Mina and what was not told in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Mina, newly married to Jonathan Harker, loves her husband but there’s something drawing her to Dracula.

In the original Dracula, the novel is told through journal entries and letters from five different narrators. The two female characters in the book are sweet, feminine and sexless. The story is full of gaps and unanswered questions. Their encounters with Dracula are almost entirely off-stage and shrouded in mystery.

“Stoker’s Dracula is a very evil, ghoulish old man, endlessly discussed and feared, and rarely seen after the first few chapters,” saysJames. “I didn’t see how Mina could possibly fall in love with a character like that.”

“What if the true Dracula was not exactly evil,” says James. “But, rather an attractive, charismatic, highly intelligent, accomplished, and sympathetic being…a man who’d taken full advantage of his gift of immortality to expand his mind and talents, a man who had a very different explanation for every terrible act attributed to him…who’d been misunderstood. Mina could fall madly in love with that man and become involved in a passionate love affair so scandalous, she couldn’t bring herself to write the true story in her journal…until now.  I got excited about that concept. That’s the book I decided to write.”

“The entire time I was writing the novel, my husband Bill kept telling me that he didn’t like Dracula, the guy was an evil predator, and he didn’t see how I could possibly turn him into a romantic hero,” says James.  “Although Bill had loved all my other books, he felt certain he wasn’t going to like this one, and he’d be happy to see Dracula die at the end. I just said, wait until you read the book, you’ll see. Bill walked around quoting ‘Please don’t be afraid’ and ‘Welcome to my parlor’ so often that I had to put those lines into the book.”

“Bill was the first person to read the manuscript when it was finished,” says James. “He reluctantly sat down on a Saturday afternoon and started reading. He was hooked instantly. He read far into the night and all day on Sunday and then he took the day off from work on Monday so that he could finish it!  He said I had entirely captivated him.  He loved the novel and he loved my version of Dracula, his heart went out to him, and the whole time he was reading, he kept hoping nothing bad would happen to him at the end.  I was both relieved and thrilled by his ecstatic response.”

James did an in-depth study of life in the Victorian era and the locations portrayed in the novel.

“I obsessively read and re-read an annotated version of Stoker’s novel Dracula in search of details and clues,” says James. “I watched many film versions of Dracula as well as the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and True Blood.  I read a wealth of vampire literature from such contemporary series as Twilight to novels going back a century or more.”

“I’ve been interested in vampires for years, ever since my son Ryan asked me to co-write a screenplay with him that featured vampires,” says James. “Over the past century, vampires have evolved in literature and film from evil, monstrous predators to beings who are good-looking, powerful, eternally young, and good at heart…who fall madly in love with a human and constantly struggle against the evil within them.  I love that.  We feel bad for vampires for the things they can’t do…eat, drink, walk in sunlight…but we envy their strength and immortality.”

“Vampires are the forbidden fruit, a combination of sex and danger that’s a powerful aphrodisiac for many…at least in fantasy,” says James. “A vampire who’s lived for centuries should be incredibly good at everything, don’t you think?  Vampire sex should be the best sex a woman has ever had.  After all, they’ve had centuries to practice.”

“My favorite male characters in fiction are the ones who are hopelessly in love with a woman who, for one reason or another, they feel they can’t have,” says James. “A wealth of emotion smolders within them until at last they reveal their feelings in one passionate outburst…and then the real romance begins.  Although I didn’t plan it that way, the heroes in every one of my novels follows that pattern, and my Dracula is no exception.”

James began working on Dracula My Love soon after completing her previous novel. After turning in the manuscript for The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë, she was looking for my next topic.

“My agent knew about my interest in vampires and all things British, and suggested that I retell Dracula as a romance from the point of view of Mina Harker, the heroine,” says James. “It sounded like a brilliant idea, but when I reread Bram Stoker’s novel, I wasn’t sure at first how to approach it.” Later, after solving that problem and writing the book, the manuscript came to the attention of an editor at Vanguard Press. James was invited to write a romantic vampire novella for Vanguard. Unlike novels, novellas are often intended to be read at a single sitting, are not divided into chapters and are shorter than 40,000 words.

“I’d had so much fun writing Dracula, My Love,” says James. “I was definitely not finished writing about vampires. I could come up with any story I liked, as long as it was a contemporary love story involving a vampire.  I think that the novel and novella go hand in hand. I feel incredibly lucky to have an opportunity to write complimentary works to be released so close together.” James’ novella is called Nocturne.

“Nocturne is about a woman who’s saved from death and then falls in love with a devastatingly handsome, fascinating, but enigmatic stranger with whom she’s snowbound for days during a raging blizzard,” says James. “When she finds out his dark secret, that he’s an ages-old vampire torn between his desire for her and his thirst for her blood, she’s miles from anywhere and has nowhere to run. The challenge was to create a book that only has two characters in it, takes place in only one location, and yet keeps the sexual tension, twists, turns, and surprises coming.  The novella will be published by Vanguard Press in February, in time for Valentine’s Day.”

Dracula My Love explores Dracula’s obsession with Mina and Mina’s growing love for Dracula. This book tries to fill in the gaps in the original novel by Bram Stoker. It appeals to readers who already love vampire stories, to those who enjoy a passionate, adventure-filled love story, and to those who love historical fiction. It may even entice readers of contemporary vampire fiction back to the Victoria era, to meet one of the first and most powerful vampire of them all.

Syrie James was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

Dracula My Love by Syrie James

Trade Paperback, 480 pages, Publisher: Avon A (July 20, 2010), Language: English

ISBN: 9780061923036 $14.99

http://www.harpercollinscatalogs.com/harper/531_1666_323937373235.htm