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Series: The Lightbringer Trilogy. Book one. |
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This is a sword-and-sorcery epic with a world facing doom and a prophecy that promises hope. The sun is dying and the forces of darkness, the worshippers of Iss, God of Death, have grown strong. The city of Thrull suffers the most. Seven years ago Lord Faron Gaton and his vampire hordes took over. Now mortals trapped within Thrull hide in their homes at night. To satisfy the prophecy and search for artifacts of power, three followers of Reh, God of Light, set out on their quest. Urthred is a priest of Reh and knows magic, Jayal is a young nobleman whose father once ruled Thrall, and Thalassa is a woman loved by Jayal but now used as a plaything of Lord Gaton. Magic and evil fiends make their adventures more than a little harrowing. |
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135. Kalogridis, Jeanne. The Diaries of the Family Dracul series. |
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The descendents of Vlad Tsepesh (Dracula) have a covenant with this most famous nosferatu, and, in this trilogy, the horror of what that covenant implies manifests itself. The story begins in 1845 with the death of Arkady Tsepesh's father in Transylvania. Heartbroken, Arkady returns for the funeral along with his pregnant wife, Mary. Arkady assumes his father's position as manager of his great-uncle's estate. Although he has always revered, even loved, his Uncle Vlad, Arkady slowly realizes that a monster lurks in Dracula's soul, and that his own soul and that of his newborn son may soon be forfeit. The trilogy takes place over a span of fifty years and brings the reader up to the time of Stoker's novel. The story plays out as Arkady and others like Bram Van Helsing seek to destroy the evil that is Dracula. This is not an easy task because the Prince of Darkness has powerful allies, one of them being the vampiress Elizabeth Bathory, a creature even more brutal than he. |
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Like Stoker, Kalogridis tells her tale through a series of journal and diary entries by the various characters. The denouement gives an unusual twist to the Dracula story and the nature of the vampire. (The final volume, Lord of the Vampires, has an interesting forward by noted expert Dr. Elizabeth Miller, professor of English at Memorial University of Newfoundland.) |
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136.. Covenant with the Vampire. New York: Delacorte, 1994. Hardcover. |
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Series: The Diaries of the Family Dracul No. 1. |
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Arkady and his pregnant wife, Mary, return to the family's ancestral |
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