URBAN FANTASY REVIEW: Countess Dracula - Guy Adams

Release Date: 07/02/13

SYNOPSIS:

You can do anything in Hollywood and be forgiven, anything except grow old...It's the 1930s and cinema stands at the dawn of a new age, the silent era is all but dead, talkies are here and Technicolor is on its way. The whole world loves movie icons Frank Nayland and Elizabeth Sasdy, lapping up each new picture and following their romantic life story both on and off the screen. But all is not as perfect as it appears. Not only has the advent of talkies meant torturous sessions with a vocal coach to try and remove Sasdy's Hungarian accent but she's starting to spot the first few grey hairs, and the lines on her face get deeper every day. If she loses her looks she'll lose everything, but even a woman as powerful as Elizabeth Sasdy can't fight nature. Can she? A chance accident reveals the solution. But just how far is the Queen of Hollywood prepared to go to stay beautiful forever?


REVIEW:

To be honest I’m a reader that’s old enough to remember the BBC showing seasons of Late Night Hammer Horror that coincided with me coming home from my part time job of Waiter at a restaurant with something nice to eat in tow. So to be blunt I have very fond memories of those times, so much so that I definitely recall catching Countess Dracula (featuring the attractive buxom Ingrid Pitt.)

So when Hammer brings a new book out from a film that I enjoyed way back when, I tend to like to read to see what they’ve done to bring it not only bang up to date but also to bring a touch of the nostalgia back. Within this book Guy Adams, brings it to the modern reader by setting it in an idealised 30’s Hollywood, It has a lot of the same twists but to be honest with the story following the original pretty closely I could definitely see that it was more than a little dated and didn’t really add anything new to the genre.

Its clichéd, the characters were more than a little flat and for me, the story really didn’t travel or do anything other than produce a book that wouldn’t have taken much to tame it down enough for the YA market. It disappointed, didn’t take me anywhere in my imagination and to be brutal was sadly lacking in so many ways. If you have to read this book borrow it from the library or wait for it to hit a cheap book shop near you as sadly I suspect a great many will be upset at the cost and lack of pay off.