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‘Dracul’ Co-Author Dacre Stoker Explains His Family’s ‘Stake’ in the Dracula Legacy

The world’s most famous vampire novel was published in 1897, and since then, countless authors and screenwriters have created their own versions of Dracula.

But author Dacre Stoker has a unique perspective on it.

He’s the great-grand-nephew of Bram Stoker, who wrote Dracula.

“We’re very proud of Bram,” he says about his family. “We kind of have a stake in reminding people who the author was. Everybody knows Dracula. They don’t know Bram.”

In 2009, Dacre co-wrote a sequel to the original. Now his second novel is out, and Dacre is coming to Chattanooga to promote it.

Co-written with J.D. Barker, Draculis a prequel featuring Bram himself as a main character.

Dacre speaks with us ahead of events at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on November 8 and Star Line Bookson November 9.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

The prequel to Dracula, inspired by notes and texts left behind by the author of the classic novel, Dracul is a supernatural thriller that reveals not only Dracula’s true origins but Bram Stoker’s—and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them.

It is 1868, and a twenty-one-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here...

A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents' Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen—a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen—and that the nightmare they've thought long ended is only beginning.