Dracula & Daughters by Emma Carroll
When Mina, Buffy, and Bella discover a mysterious handbook, they learn the secrets of vampire healing. But reading a book is a lot easier than putting the knowledge into practice.
Gothic galore!
Determined to become Temstown’s first female doctor, Mina sneaks into the cemetery one night to steal a corpse - all in the name of science and study. But she doesn’t get far. The grave she has her eye on, has been forced open from the inside …
Mina is plunged into a twisty vampire adventure, but things get complicated when she discovers vampire blood running through her own veins.
Packed with girl power, Dracula & Daughters launches a new middle grade vampire adventure series. This time, the damsel-in-distress is a stable boy, the menacing blood-sucker is a young woman, and the only heroes brave and smart enough to resolve the chaos are three overlooked red-haired girls who find their true strengths when they work together.
As a bookworm, I loved all the gothic literary references. There’s a Helsing, a Renfield, an Otranto, a Northanger, a Stoker. There’s a Lucy Westenra, a talking raven called Poe, and a room numbered 1897. Can you spot others?
The scenes with Carmilla Blakelock were unexpectedly sweet and I was moved by the graveyard flowers at the end. I thought the male baddies capitulated quite easily, but the constantly evolving mission keeps the plot pacy. My children were wide-eyed throughout the finale and asked at the end whether vampire healers are real. Of course I said yes…
Many thanks to Faber & Faber, Emma Carroll, and NetGalley for my advance reader copy. Wish I had my own Poe.
Dracula & Daughters is out this September and will appeal to fans of Alex Foulkes’ Rules for Vampires and Polly Ho-Yen’s How I Saved the World in a Week.
WHAT TO READ NEXT
Rules for Vampires by Alex Foulkes
How I Saved the World in a Week by Polly Ho-Yen
