Dracula, My Love by Syrie James

Wow. This has been a fascinating retelling of the classic Dracula tale. It's told from Mina's POV and in this case, the first person narrative works wonderfully. The story begins with Mina visiting her dear friend Lucy while her fiance, Jonathon Harker is away on business in Transyvania. What Mina doesn't know is that Jonathon's business trip has taken a bad turn. After all, his client is none other than Count Dracula...

While Jonathon is suffering brain fever and consorting with lady vampires, Mina begins experiencing strange phenomenas herself. A strange ship has washed in on the beach nearby with an entirely dead crew, her friend Lucy begins sleepwalking, and Mina meets a handsome stranger that has swept her off her feet. His name is Mr. Wagner and he has enough charm to convince the ever proper, rule abiding Mina to sneak off for midnight pavilon dances.

Well, Lucy obtains mysterious bite marks on her neck and becomes seriously ill and as a result four men, one a doctor and one a professor, come into the picture. While they come to the realization that they have an "undead" among them and slowly begin to point their fingers at Count Dracula, Mina discovers what Jonathon has been going thru and rushes to his side. There's a quickie wedding and Mina forces her strong feelings for the mysterious Mr. Wagner to the side or tries to anyway..

I don't want to give away too much, but needless to say, Jonathon's frightening experiences in Translyvania and Mina's vacation frights go hand in hand. Mr. Wagner is none other than Count Dracula!

Jonathon and the four men, one of them Van Helsing, vow to track down Count Dracula and put him to death forever. Little do they know that Mina is actually in love with the Count and their romance continues behind Jonathon's back. Which side will Mina take in the end? The Count's or her husband's?

Mina has some major choices to make. Aide with the vampire hunt and watch the men murder the man she secretly loves and possibly lead them right to his door or believe and aide a blood drinking monster to escape and possibly lead the men into a trap. However, if she becomes a vampire herself, the choice is out of her hands... The only thing about this story I didn't like was how very inconsistent Mina is. About 60 percent into the tale, she began to get on my nerves. Dracula has an excuse for everything. He didn't kill so and so or do this... and she believes him. Then Van Helsing says Dracula is evil and did this and Mina believes him and declares she hates Dracula and so on.. She basically believes whatever anyone tells her. She also lies to save her own reputation and fabricates tales to save her own hide.. "I spun a terrible story, painting myself as the most innocent and persecuted of victims, and depicting Count Dracula as the monster they all expected, and which I finally knew him to be."

I bought this book from Amazon.