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The Historian
by: Elizabeth Kostova

Used Price: $2.84
Collectible Price: $25.95
Third Party New Price: $8.04

Binding: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 656
Publication Date: June 14, 2005
Sales Rank: 155347

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
DESCRIPTION: In this riveting debut of breathtaking scope, a young girl discovers her father's darkest secret and embarks on a harrowing journey across Europe to complete the quest he never could -- to find history's most legendary fiend: Dracula. When a motherless American girl living in Europe finds a medieval book and a package of letters, all addressed ominously to 'My dear and unfortunate successor...' she begins to unravel a thread that leads back to her father's past, his mentor's career, and an evil hidden in the depths of history. In those few quiet moments, she unwittingly assumes a quest she will discover is her birthright: a hunt that nearly brought her father to ruin and may have claimed the life of his adviser and dear friend, history professor Bartholomew Rossi. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler, the historical Dracula, have to do with the 20th century? Is it possible that Dracula has lived on in the modern world? And why have a select few historians risked reputation, sanity, and even their lives to learn the answer? So begins an epic journey to unlock the secrets of the strange medieval book, an adventure that will carry our heroine across Europe and into the past -- not only to the times of Vlad's heinous reign, but to the days when her mother was alive and her father was still a vibrant young scholar. In the end, she uncovers the startling fate of Rossi, and comes face to face with the definition of evil-- to find, ultimately, that good may not always triumph.

Amazon.com Review:
If your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova's long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian. The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father's library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: 'My dear and unfortunate successor.' When the girl confronts her father, he reluctantly confesses an unsettling story: his involvement, twenty years earlier, in a search for his graduate school mentor, who disappeared from his office only moments after confiding to Paul his certainty that Dracula--Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century--was still alive. The story turns out to concern our narrator directly because Paul's collaborator in the search was a fellow student named Helen Rossi (the unacknowledged daughter of his mentor) and our narrator's long-dead mother, about whom she knows almost nothing. And then her father, leaving just a note, disappears also.

As well as numerous settings, both in and out of the East Bloc, Kostova has three basic story lines to keep straight--one from 1930, when Professor Bartolomew Rossi begins his dangerous research into Dracula, one from 1950, when Professor Rossi's student Paul takes up the scent, and the main narrative from 1972. The criss-crossing story lines mirror the political advances, retreats, triumphs, and losses that shaped Dracula's beleaguered homeland--sometimes with the Byzantines on top, sometimes the Ottomans, sometimes the rag-tag local tribes, or the Orthodox church, and sometimes a fresh conqueror like the Soviet Union.

Although the book is appropriately suspenseful and a delight to read--even the minor characters are distinctive and vividly seen--its most powerful moments are those that describe real horrors. Our narrator recalls that after reading descriptions of Vlad burning young boys or impaling 'a large family,' she tried to forget the words: 'For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth.' The reader, although given a satisfying ending, gets a strong enough dose of European history to temper the usual comforts of the closing words. --Regina Marler

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Longer than it looks/needs, but otherwise good
It was a good read. A little longer than it needed to be. One chapter just went on and on like a high school textbook. The book went on forever, then the end seemed to come out of nowhere. I'm glad I read it, but wouldn't recommend it to just any friend.

Rating:

- Good writing...bad editting.
The editor must have been asleep on this one. At least a third of the book could have been removed altogether which would have made it a better read. She describes everything beautifully, it is simply too much.

Rating:

- Brilliant
I was completely blown away by this novel. I expected it to be good, and couldn't wait to read it, but I never thought it would be this good.
So well written, it is a "road-movie" through Europe, Amstersdam, France, Italy, Greece, Istanbul, Sofia and countryside Bulgaria, Budapest in Hungary, Romania, a story so enthralling that you can't leave the book. I sure believe anyone interested in history should read it, and for those who love vampire stories, this is a feast!

Rating:

- The Historian
This is a greatly entertaining book full of mystery and intrigue. Perfect for cuddling up with on a cold day.

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