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"It is with great regret that I imagine you, whoever you are, reading the account I must put down here."

The Historian, the debut novel by Elizabeth Kostova, starts off introducing us to a women who tells she is compelled to share a story which happened thirty six years ago. The story delves into her dark journey into an unknown world to try and find her father Paul and uncover the mysterious disappearance of her mother.

At sixteen years old, the young girl finds an ancient volume filled with aging, yellow papers addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor." The letters tell of her father's long ago journey to find his beloved mentor, Rossi, who mysteriously disappears. Paul is convinced his mentor's disappearance is due to old research Rossi had started long ago about the true location of Vlad's tomb. With the help of a packet of old letters Rossi had given him the night he went missing, Paul is plunged into his own quest to find the truth of Dracula and find his mentor. Vlad's reign of terror is the basis for the Dracula legend. Many have gone looking for Dracula and the legend surrounding Vlad only to fail by either losing their lives or their sanity.

Years later the young women of sixteen must now go on her own journey to find her father and bring him back from the research that will likely kill him. Going through Rossi's and her father's own letters, she must risk her life in order to try and save his. She must sift through ancient texts and hidden clues throughout Europe to help her along. Waking up on a train she finds a dark figure sitting across from her. Asking where her father is, she realizes she is not the only one looking for her father. She knows this figure is not entirely human and is filled with terror when she comes to the conclusion everything in the letters must be true. Dracula must be real.

In The Historian, Kostova takes the reader on a moderate paced journey filled with well researched fact and wonderfully written fiction. She has the ability to create a descriptive sense of culture. It moves from the larger European cities - London, Amsterdam, Istanbul - to deep into the Balkan countryside. For the lover's of history, travel and mystery, The Historian offers a very enjoyable journey for the reader who will dare take it. This book was slow at some points. I felt sometimes I was reading out of a history dictionary, rather than a novel.

Learn more about this author, Rachel Turner.
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