Title: The Bathory Curse 
Author: Renee Lake
Source: Received a free copy for an honest review
My Rating : 4 Dragon Prints
Before reading The Bathory Curse, I don’t think that I’ve read books that had the ‘real’ Dracula in them. It’s always been about hot young vampires pursuing young mortal girls or young mortal girls fighting against vampires. Renee Lake has the king of the vampires pursue his first wife who became a Strega after she was brought back to life thanks Bendis, Goddess of the Night, Magick, and the Hunt.
However, the short synopsis on Amazon intrigued me. It took me three evenings to finish the novel. The story was well told, though it has missing punctuation, typos, and no family tree. I counted over thirty-three characters which appeared and reappeared through the twenty-four chapter novel. A family tree would certainly help the reader not get lost who is who… especially the women who spent centuries in limbo. Note: The missing punctuation and typos did not stop me from enjoying the story.
It is a story about Dracula’s first wife, Nea who will forever look to be twenty-five years old woman. After she is saved by Bendis, she has to break the curse that has haunted her family for years. Over the years, she gains allies in her strogi, her vampire husband, other Strega, and mortals. So I would say the premise and the plot are very good.
The story is actually quite complex and I would give 5 stars alone for the fact that the author got this story finished and published. I can tell that the research portion of writing this novel took a long time and it was a pleasure reading. My favorite characters are Sabine and Nea. They are great friends.
However, I think that there are areas that can be improved. We see a vampire for the first time in chapter 5, I was waiting to read about a vampire and thought he or should would show up in chapter two or three. In chapter 9, we learn that the Bathory women are part of different lines. I believe that information would have been good to know a little bit earlier because it came as a surprise. Also, I would have liked to see more scenes with Costica. It seemed that there would have been more of him. However, one of my favorite scenes was when Nea, along with her friends, went looking for the flower. It would have been interesting to see what Sabine’s ‘nightmare’ was.
Overall, it was pleasure to read this book. I would recommend to anyone to read it who is okay with adult scenes, dark characteristics, and fantasy aspects about the gods.
