The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova: Novel is an account of several historians' search for the historic Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula. Through letters, medieval documents, journals and narrative, the reader discovers how Dracula evolved from a cruel but brave warrior against the Ottoman Empire to become the vampire that we know him as today. His "undead' remains was transported by loyal followers from Romania to the Ottoman Empire, to Bulgaria, and finally to France where he still hopes to re-establish and document himself as a conqueror and immortal enemy of the Islamic faith. The modern day historians race to destroy him across generations and continents.

As a teenager who was first introduced to Bram Stoker's "Dracula", I've always been fascinated by the creepy story of the vampire. From books to movies, I've somewhat followed the tale of Dracula over the years. I've been bored with the over-done teenage vampire angst stories that's been coming out since the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers, but by accident, I picked up Kostova's "The Historian". The book cover did not give any indication that this is a vampire story, and I was just looking for a good historic mystery book to read. The book turned out to be a fascinating account of the history of  Dracula and the modern day hunt to find destroy him. Don't know if any of the "alleged original medieval sources are real, but Kosovo's use of them give the impression that they are, which makes the story almost plausible. As with other historic/occult stories of this genre, it's the hunt that is the most interesting. The actual encounter with the "monster" is a bit hocus pocus, but nevertheless, I still thoroughly enjoyed it.