As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I have been mostly bedridden since my surgery, and have had plenty of time to read and sleep. Thanks to this opportunity, I was finally able to finish The Historian, a book introduced to me by my grandma several months ago. Elizabeth Kostova weaves a gripping narrative story that involves the research of centuries, three narrators, and one unsleeping, undead manifestation of evil: Vlad Tepes, the Impaler, also known as Dracula.
A teenage girl, the daughter of a historian, is swept away in a search for her father, who disappears after a strange series of events, with only letters of research and documentation he left her, and Barley, a college student, to guide her through Europe as she embarks after her father. Through the letters, the narrative of a journey decades before is told through Paul, the girl's father, and how he and Helen Rossi, a spirited Hungarian woman, are thrown together in a quest to save Paul's mentor, Helen's father, who has seemingly been taken by Dracula.
As the quests unfolded, I felt as through I was in the midst of an exciting and compelling history lecture. Although the story is fiction, the research is fact.
A darkly gripping read. Recommended for thrill-seekers, mystery lovers and historians alike.
