Covenant with the Vampire

From the flaps of the Delacorte first edition: "In her incredibly accomplished fiction debut, Jeanne Kalogridis takes on one of the most compelling and terrifying classics ever written, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Dark, sensual, and charged with suspense, Covenant with the Vampire reveals the mysteries behind Dracula, transforming it into a piece of a puzzle that is much larger, more complex, and more compelling that anyone might have imagined. Beginning fifty years before the start of Bram Stoker's novel, Covenant with the Vampire introduces us to Dracula's family, who are bound by a covenant as ancient as their blood to serve Dracula and to protect him. At the castle of Prince Vlad Tsepesh, also known as Dracula, Vlad's great-nephew Arkady has recently taken over the job of managing the thriving, busy estate. Arkady is honored to care for his beloved though eccentric great-uncle... until he begins to realize what is expected of him in his new role. Either he provides his great-uncle with the victims to satisfy his needs, or Vlad will kill those Arkady loves. His is trapped into becoming a party to murder and sadistic torture. And it is in his blood. When Arkady learns that his newborn son is being groomed to follow one day in his footsteps, he knows that he must fight Dracula, even if it means his death. The first installment in a rich historical trilogy that will span the fifty years before Dracula and finally overlap with the events in that book, Covenant with the Vampire reveals secrets that will shock and delight readers of the original. Written in diary form, like Dracula, Covenant with the Vampire is the erotic compulsively readable debut of a major new voice in vampire fiction."