As a matter of rule I dont read books about vamparies. As a result, the very fashionalble craziness about Twilight series went right by me. But a fan of the Twilight saga at work was reading Historian and suggestes I read it too, since it's 1)well written; 2) about Dracula as historical figure; 3) there are not too many vampires.
I did. Well, it is relatively well written if you don't mind constatnt repetitions of the same situation over and over and over again. Nothing changes but libraries. Even vampire is always the same. You would think that in over 500 years of Dracula's existance he would manage to have more than one vampire at his disposal.
Kostova tries to weave a historcal novel with vampire legend as a backdrop. But she tries too hard and, unfortunately, fails. For a rambling, 500+ pages book, the ending is abrupt and unsatisfactory. She sends her characters all over the map: England, Turkey, US, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania. Their meetings are chaotic and incidental. There are too many coincidences in the book that have no plausable explanations.
To be fair, I have to say that the book was not a total waste of time for me. It was somewhat educational to read about Turkish invasion in 14th century and her interpretation of the Soviet influence on the countries of the so called East Bloc was entertaining if not always true.