Promotional Information

THE HISTORIAN is an international bestseller and has sold over 2 million copies in hardback

About the Author

Elizabeth Kostova graduated from Yale and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award for the Novel-in-Progress for The Historian.

Reviews

A spirited update of Bram Stoker's classic, vastly ingenious...Kostova is a whiz at storytelling and narrative pace - ObserverTold with a compelling intensity which will keep the reader hooked until the last Undead tomb door swings shut - Sunday TelegraphFilled with fascinating details of archaic vampire lore, the splendours of the Ottoman Empire and the beauty of Romania - TLS

When a teenage girl asks about a medieval book hidden in her father's library, he reluctantly recounts how it changed his life. The book of blank pages, graced with only a single dragon illustration and the word "Drakulya," appeared as he pursued his doctorate, luring him into a historical search for the real Dracula, Vlad the Impaler. Similar works appeared to his mentor and to his future wife, enticing each to follow a trail of manuscripts and maps in search of Dracula's grave. Equal parts mystery, romance, travelog, and political primer, Kostova's debut novel won the Hopwoods Award for Novel-in-Progress. The tome took a decade to write and is occasionally as tedious as a long journey, but actors Justine Eyre and Paul Michael propel listeners through the byzantine plot. A library with a lively, enduring circulation of the print version could confidently invest in its audio counterpart.-Judith Robinson, Univ. at Buffalo, NY Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Adult/High School-A motherless 16-year-old girl stumbles upon a mysterious book and papers dating back to her father's student days at Oxford. She asks him to explain her find but he disappears before she can learn everything. Reading the salutation of the letters, "My dear and unfortunate successor," the unnamed heroine uncovers an academic quest that begins with her father's mentor's first research into the history of Vlad Tepes (Dracula) and reaches a kind of conclusion many years later. Kostova's debut book unfolds across Europe, through three main narrators, and back and forth in time, as the story of two families' connections to and search for the true Vlad the Impaler is unveiled. The historian of the title could refer to any of the novel's central characters or even to Vlad Tepes himself. While teens may gain a feeling for Cold War Europe and some respect for the Internet-less scholars of 40 years ago, Historian is an eerie thriller, an atmospheric mystery, and an appealing romance. Teen fascination with vampires has been keen since Bram Stoker popularized the legend of Dracula, right up through Buffy. This complex, convoluted, and well-written novel will appeal to teens who love a story on a grand scale that is as engrossing as it is entertaining.-Jane Halsall, McHenry Public Library District, IL Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.