I’m an author and TV journalist, a massive bookworm, and a lover of the good old art of putting pen to paper. I’ve always been intrigued about how we can see things on paper that we can’t say in real life. I’ve written several dual timeline novels, where a mystery from the past gets solved in the present day. I’ve also written two books about the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew during the two world wars, and two novels based on the television soap Emmerdale during the Second World War.
Dracula is the book that ignited both my love of historical fiction and my passion for vampires! The brilliantly brooding atmosphere and blood-thirsty story are brought to life through letters and journal entries. Dracula launched a thousand other stories of vampires – many of them total page-turners – but the original is still the best. I must have re-read this story ten times. I’ve studied it. I’ve watched adaptations on TV and film. I’ve written essays about it. And I’m still not bored of it!
28
authors picked
Dracula
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
17.
What is this book about?
'The very best story of diablerie which I have read for many years' Arthur Conan Doyle
A masterpiece of the horror genre, Dracula also probes identity, sanity and the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire. It begins when Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase a London house, and makes horrifying discoveries in his client's castle. Soon afterwards, disturbing incidents unfold in England - an unmanned ship is wrecked; strange puncture marks appear on a young woman's neck; a lunatic asylum inmate raves about the imminent arrival of his 'Master' - and a determined group of adversaries…
The first time I read Possession I thought it had ruined all novels for me forever more because it was just so completely perfect. Thankfully, that didn’t happen! But this love story between two Victorian poets, and the modern-day researchers looking into their romance, is still one of my favourites. It might just be the reason I keep returning to dual timeline novels in my own work.
Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time.
Celie’s letters to God in The Color Purple, and those to her sister Nettie, tell her story of abuse and exploitation, as well as her capacity for love and her gritty determination. The Color Purple is always cited as an important book, which of course it is, but it’s also an accessible, entertaining, and ultimately inspiring read.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alice Walker's iconic modern classic is now a Penguin Book.
A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug…
A bit of a cheat, as this story isn’t only told through letters, but also emails, text messages, annotations, and even sticky Post-It notes. It’s the most innovative and clever story I’ve read recently and it’s laugh-out-loud funny, too. The slow unravelling of the truth behind the fundraiser, as well as the eventual whodunnit, alongside an amateur production of All My Sons, is clever and gripping in equal measure.
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Winner of the CWA New Blood Dagger Award
“[W]itty, original…a delight.” —The New York Times
Perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Lisa Jewell, this international bestseller and “dazzlingly clever” (The Sunday Times, London) murder mystery follows a community rallying around a sick child—but when escalating lies lead to a dead body, everyone is a suspect.
The Fairway Players, a local theatre group, is in the midst of rehearsals when tragedy strikes the family of director Martin Hayward and his wife Helen, the play’s star. Their young granddaughter has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and…
Adrian Mole is a few years older than I am so I devoured his diaries as a young teen in the 1980s, and then followed him through his twenties, thirties, and forties in the sequels. My tween son has just read the first two books and discovering them again through his eyes has been a joy (though explaining some of the oddities of the eighties was less fun: “What are the Falklands, Mum?”). How brilliantly clever to tell a story through the eyes of a character who knows much less than the reader. And how totally hilarious, too.
London, 1940. When nurse Elsie offers to send a reassuring letter to the family of a patient, she has an idea. She begins a book of last letters: messages to be sent on to wounded soldiers’ loved ones, so that no one is left without a final goodbye. But one message will change Elsie’s life forever.
London, present day. Stephanie has a lot of people she’d like to speak to: her estranged brother, to whom her last words were in anger; her nan, whose dementia means she is only occasionally lucid enough to talk. When she discovers a book of wartime letters, Stephanie realises the importance of our final words – and uncovers the story of a secret love, a desperate choice, and the unimaginable courage of the woman behind it all…
I once saw a play at the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Theatre. A play about Sor Juana. It was a good play, but it felt like something was missing like jalapenos left out of enchiladas. The play kept nudging me to look further to find Sor Juana, and so for the next five years, I did so. I read and read more. I listened for her voice, and that is where I heard her life come alive. This isn’t the only possibility for Sor Juana’s life; it is just the one I heard.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, this brilliant 17th century nun flew through Mexico City on the breeze of poetry and philosophy. She met with princes of the Church, and with the royalty of Spain and Mexico. Then she met a stunning, powerful woman with lavender eyes, la Vicereine Maria Louisa, and her life changed forever. As her fame grew, she dared to challenge the diabolical Archbishop once too often, and he threw her in front of the Inquisition, where she stood, alone.
Sor Juana's work is studied still today, and justifiably so. Scholars study her months on end; mystics…
This astonishingly brilliant 17th century poet and dramatist, this nun, flew through Mexico City on wings of inspiration. Having no dowry, she chose the life of a nun so that she might learn, so that she might write, so that she might meet the most fascinating people of the western world. She accomplished all of that, and more.
One day a woman with violet eyes, eyes the color of passion flowers, entered her life. It was the new Vicereine, Maria Luisa. As the two most powerful women in Mexico City, the bond between them crossed politics and wound them in…
