• Dracula, My Love

  • The Secret Journals of Mina Harker
  • By: Syrie James
  • Narrated by: Justine Eyre
  • Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (123 ratings)

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Dracula, My Love  By  cover art

Dracula, My Love

By: Syrie James
Narrated by: Justine Eyre
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Publisher's summary

Syrie James approaches Bram Stoker's classic Dracula with a breathtaking new perspective - as, for the first time, Mina Harker records the shocking story of her scandalous seduction and sexual rebirth. Who is this magnetic, fascinating man? And how could one woman fall so completely under his spell?

Mina Harker is torn between two men. Struggling to hang on to the deep, pure love she's found within her marriage to her husband, Jonathan, she is inexorably drawn into a secret, passionate affair with a charismatic but dangerous lover. This haunted and haunting creature has awakened feelings and desires within her that she has never before known, remaking her as a woman.

Although everyone she knows fears him and is pledged to destroy him, Mina sees a side to him that the others cannot: a tender, romantic side; a man who's taken full advantage of his gift of immortality to expand his mind and talents; a man who is deeply in love and who may not be so guilty of evil after all.

> Yet, to surrender is surely madness, for to be with him could end her life. It may cost Mina all she holds dear, but to make her choice she must learn everything she can about the remarkable origins and sensuous powers of this man, this exquisite monster, this...Dracula!

©2010 Syrie James (P)2010 Tantor

Critic reviews

“With its poetic, 19th-century prose style, this tale about a fierce, forbidden romance will appeal to even the most jaded romance fan.” ( Library Journal)
“James gives readers an intriguing alternate theory as to the events that occurred in Stoker’s classic horror tale while at the same time delivering a spooky yet thoroughly romantic love story.” ( Chicago Tribune)

What listeners say about Dracula, My Love

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Far Better Than I Thought or Hoped For!

On the whole, I can't stand fanfic, especially the sappy, amateur romantic stuff that proliferates the internet now. Generally I just steer clear. There has always been an exception in my mind, and that is Susan Kay's Phantom, of which Audible seriously needs to acquire an audio version. In the past 6 years or so, there's been an abundance of "Phanfic" out there telling the would-be sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, and most of them are anywhere from average to complete suckdom. The only stand out one is The Phantom of Manhattan, which is based on the original story idea by Andrew Lloyd Webber that he couldn't get to work, but then got to work some 20 years later in the form of Love Never Dies. Regardless, the stand out novel here is Phantom, which not only builds and expands on the original story, it's actually written far better than the original work and allows you to get inside the heads of the characters and explore the psychology of the story. It remains to this day as one of my all-time favorite books, and it's the book by which I judge all expansions of classic Victorian-Gothic literature.

Thing is, Dracula has the same problem, and it's because of Phantom that I held out hope of one day finding "THE book" that would go deeper and give me more. The original novel is perfect... for about 4 chapters, then it suffers quite a bit from being in a hurry to tell the story. There's no real expansion of anything. But the idea is brilliant. A lot of stories have been written since the book hit public domain. Some of it tries to concentrate on the Dracula / Mina story, some of it tries to focus on the monster hunt, and some of it tries too hard to be the sequel to the story. The Historian isn't bad, and the same holds true for the "official" sequel, Dracula The Un-Dead. But none of it stands out.

Now that's changed in my mind, because of THIS book. On a whim, I spent one of my Audible credits on a book that I could only assume would be a terrible shipper's squee-fest, and I figured that if it were, I could exchange it and get my credit back. Let me tell you about this book! It's not only beautifully told by a writer with a superior understanding of character development than Stoker, it also greatly expands on the original novel, especially on the characters of Mina and her husband Jonathan Harker. This book spins the familiar tale from Mina's perspective in such a way as to tie up some of the loose ends and filling the gaps to make sense of what Stoker only hinted at. And as a bonus, it's written with that Victorian sensibility in mind, so it fits as a companion work to the original novel. Is it a romance? Yes and no. It deals with the romance that's presented in the story, but it comes across more as a psychological study that masterfully tells how Mina could fall for the Count. Her backstory is called into play here, and everything just builds so well. But what's truly amazing to me is that in the course of exploring the romance and conflict within Mina, both sides of Dracula are explored. We get both the man he might have been (Vlad the Impaler notwithstanding) and the monster we know him to be. The love triangle takes center stage as a result, but it's less about the relationships and more about why the characters act and react as they do. Syrie James has clearly studied Stoker's original, and her love of the story shows through. It's not perfect, but it does shift the camera angle to include so much more of what we knew had to be there, and it does it very well.

Then add in a top level performance by Justine Eyre, who not only changes her voice between all of the characters, but eerily enough matches a few that I've heard in a couple different film versions.

All in all, I am truly impressed. A hardcopy of this book will find its way to my library shelf before long just on account.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

I think I preferred to the original

it was a interesting to see original story from another point of view. I vastly preferred Nikoli to Jonathan, and not merely because I have a weakness for bad boy's. He encouraged Mina to spread out more than was acceptable for women of the time. Mina and Jonathan were childhood friends who married. Mina and Nikoli were a man and woman who met and fell in love with each other. If you are a fan of the original Dracula you will enjoy this. Narrator is fabulous and story is solid. 4 1/2 stars

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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stunning

I love this book so wonderful love
story keep ur attention and hold it keeps it

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Hands Down My Favorite Book!

I've listened to this book 3 times now and each time it's just as thrilling and suspenseful and beautiful as the first time I heard it! Bravo to the author and narrator!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Boring Save your Credit.....

I should of have listened to the other reviews of this book, it was slow and boring. I wish I could get my credit back and get another book. It did have some interesting twists but very predictable.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Lots of fun

I reread Dracula recently and wasn’t ready to give up the world he inhabited. I was also frustrated with the way Stoker wrote his women characters. He didn’t give them enough depth for my taste and I wanted to know more about them. This book explores the deeper motivations of Mina and Lucy and was a delightful gothic adventure. It’s clear the author is very familiar with the source material and had a lot of fun with it.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

I Love this Book

I love this book. I love Bram Stoker's Dracula but I love the way the story in this version unfolds. I think I have listen to this book so many time and will continue to listen to it threw the years.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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loved it

loved it!! kept my attention the entire book! will listen to it again soon!!!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting in the beginning, drags in the middle, but good ending

If you've seen the movie Brahm Stoker's Dracula, this novel sticks very close to it, but of course from Mina's side of the story, but if she had been in love with both Dracula and Jonathan. (Caveat: I haven't seen the film since it came out-- quite awhile ago-- so forgive any discrephrancies.)There are also deviations-- no explicit sex scene with Lucy, he obvious hair color change of Mina, more backstory of both Jonathan and Mina, Mina finding out about her parents-- but mostly sticks to the movie's plot line. The book explains the differences by either Mina having her private journal, lies/untruths two characters agree to collude in, and a few points which seem to be just to keep the pace a little tighter in the plot. I very much like the movie regardless of the lack of strong female roles, so I thought the idea of Mina's side of the story and a secret love affair between her and Dracula, rather than her being merely entranced by him, made for an interesting story, although the middle of this book does drag a bit. The more I listened to this book follow faithfully along to the movie, the less interesting it became so the middle part drags the most as it seems to be mostly waiting for the men to move their plot line ahead. It would have been better if the book either went into more detail about what Mina discussed with Dracula, or skipped past it faster, one of the two. In the movie they add fast music, short clips of action scenes, etc in a novel you can't so it's hard to keep a good pace so perhaps here is where the author should have deviated from the movie more. All in all, a pretty good book, with an interesting ending and a refreshing take on Mina's side of the story.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good! But that ending....

Honestly this was a good one. It’s a nice spin off of Dracula. But I have to say *SPOILERS!* the ending? Like come on. I wasn’t to happy with it. Why can’t D get the girl? Ugh. Ok enough with that. Over all the story was good. Just wasn’t happy with the ending.

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