After all that hype about Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel The Historian, I was very eager to read the book to see what it was that seemed to grip people the world over.
If you haven't already heard, the book is about the history of Dracula. There is a great amount of research on eastern European history and one is impressed by the efforts put into digging up all that history.
A young lady finds a book in her father's study which will lead her and her father on a quest to hunt down Dracula. The suspense is intriguing for the first 400 pages or so, and the book is a real page-turner. But three-quarters into it, the novel is let down by a too-lengthy account of Turkish and Bulgarian history, making it read more like a history textbook. The pace is slowed down at this point and the ending wasn't that satisfactory.
Certain aspects of the novel also seem somewhat improbable as the novel unfolds in the form of letters from the lady's father to her. To have someone writing that much in the space of such a short time is rather far-fetched an idea and it certainly had me raising my eyebrows and question marks popping up in my mind.
Overall, it is a pretty good read but I would have to admit I was a tad disappointed.
Posted by DSD at October 18, 2005 8:32 AM