Review: Hunting Prince Dracula

This was unexpectedly good. After reading Stalking Jack the Ripper I expected Hunting Prince Dracula to be on the same level, but it exceeded my expectations. There have been very few instances where I liked the sequel better than the first book, and this is one of them. This is classified as: YA Fiction, Horror Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense.

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Synopsis: Following the grief and horror of her discovery of Jack the Ripper's true identity, Audrey Rose Wadsworth has no choice but to flee London and its memories. Together with the arrogant yet charming Thomas Cresswell, she journeys to the dark heart of Romania, home to one of Europe's best schools of forensic medicine... and to another notorious killer, Vlad the Impaler, whose thirst for blood became legend.

But her life's dream is soon tainted by blood-soaked discoveries in the halls of the school's forbidding castle, and Audrey Rose is compelled to investigate the strangely familiar murders. What she finds brings all her terrifying fears to life once again.

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I really love all the women in this book. They're all so strong and fierce in the face of 19th-century oppression. Audrey Rose, as always, is an icon. The new female characters, Daciana and Ileana possess the same characteristics as Audrey Rose, which makes me love them as well.

A couple more things I love: There's LGBTQ+ representation here, which is *chef's kiss*. I'm a sucker for dark academia, so you already know that I'm obsessed with the setting. Especially the underground tunnels.

Speaking of the underground tunnels, that's where the last 70-ish pages take place, and it's also my favorite part of the book. There's a new horror around every corner. and Maniscalco's descriptive details make it come alive. Everything was perfectly paced. It moved at an expected pace throughout most of the book, and then sped up near the last 100 pages, which made for a great climax.

With Stalking Jack the Ripper, I guessed who the Ripper was like 30 pages into the book, but I couldn't figure out who the murderer was in this one until it was revealed. Honestly, I didn't expect it at all. This whole book was a surprise and every time something was revealed, I was thinking "damn I did not see that coming." That's definitely why this book was better than the last one.

I only had one problem with this, really. Audrey Rose and Thomas's relationship developed way too slow. I'm all for slow-burns, but this was a little much. I mean, really, there's so much flirting but nothing happens until the end. Which is disappointing.

Since I gave the last book 3.5/5 stars and this one was better, I'll grace it with a 4/5 star rating.