James Reese

Herculine is only six-years-old when she watches her mother die horribly and inexplicably. A child alone in the nineteenth-century French countryside, she makes her way to the secluded convent, where she is taken in as a foundling orphan and raised by nuns who teach the children of the privileged to fear a wrathful God. But shy, unworldly Herculine is not like the others in this cold, forebidding place. And when she is led down a dark path by a rebellious fellow student, she soon finds show more herself convicted of crimes unimaginable. But death at the hands of the ignorant and falsely pious is not to be Herculine's lot. Held captive in the convent library, she is visited by four unexpected saviors with timeless needs of their own: the incubus priest Father Louis; the tragic, damned beauty Madeleine; the demonic Asmodei; and Sebastiana d'Azur, a witch. By dawn, Herculine is free yet forever changed as she follows her liberators into a world of sensuous pleasures and great mysteries both wondrous and strange. Secreted away in Sebastiana's once-grand manor high above the Breton sands, Herculine sets out to find out why she has been "chosen" and for what purpose. Her quest - ripe with erotic discovery, dark magic, heresy, and blood - propels her headlong through the perils of the age, across borders between the living and the dead, and back through a time when hysteria and madness reigned, when noble heads were impaled and paraded through the streets of Paris. For only when her mysterious mission is completed - and the terrible, otherworldly roots of a gruesome Revolution are finally revealed - can she understand who and what she truly is. Until then, she must simply trust...and learn. show less

Like Rice's Interview with the Vampire, this is sensual and sexual and interweaves a subject of the horror genre--in this case witches--with well-crafted historical fiction. Set in the France of around 1830, this is mostly the first person narrative of Herculine--the very name was a hint of her nature given the famous French hermaphrodite Herculine Barbin. She is a man, a woman--and a witch.

I found this novel a page turner--the details are lush and vivid without being flowery or overdone, show more making you feel transported to another age, and in parts so suspenseful it was hard not to skip ahead to find out what was going to happen. I was particularly impressed with how the author used the lore of witches, both of the traditional kind that has converse with demons, graveyards and curses and the neo-pagan kind that can "draw down the moon."

The story, through telling the tale of Herculine's mentor, her "soror mystica," Sebastiana and her companions, the incubi Louis and succubi Madeleine, ranges from the "Burning Times" of the 1600s to the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution to the Bourbon Restoration. A Book of Shadows, we are told, is "a record of life's lessons" and this one makes for an unusual coming of age tale, sometimes deeply weird, but one I found engrossing. show less

The Dracula Dossier, by James Reese, takes you back to the London of the 1880's, in a story told through journal entries and letters. The author of the entries, the main character, is Bram Stoker, of Dracula fame. The book is filled with his real friends and acquaintances, and many events of his life, but worked around the thrilling fictional tale of how he was involved with Jack the Ripper.

It took a bit of time to get into the book, as it is a period piece, written for the day. It is worth show more the effort. Once you adjust to the literary style the reading becomes captivating, your attention is locked in and the action continues to build. The footnotes throughout, only enhance the story, giving added detail and commentary without being overwhelming and a chore.

A wonderfully exciting thriller, I would definitely recommend. show less

Written in the form of journal entries and newspaper articles, James Reese’s novel The Dracula Dossier pits Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, against the greatest monster of the late 19th century: Jack the Ripper.

Four things prejudiced me against this novel before I started reading it: first, it is an epistolary novel; second, it has footnotes, which, with very few exceptions, I have always thought were a waste of ink; third, the prologue reads like bad Sherlock Holmes pastiche; and show more finally, the printing on the odd numbered pages was so faint that I had trouble making out some of the words. Eventually I decided I was being unfair: just because the book is in a form I don’t care for doesn’t mean it’s a bad story and the printing can hardly be held against the writer. Thus it was in a very forgiving mood that I started reading.

The book started strong, with a richly detailed and suspenseful description of Bram Stoker wandering the streets of Manhattan in a blizzard, leaving behind him a trail of blood. And then…nothing happened for another hundred pages. Finally, on page one-hundred-twenty-something, things started to pick up. Unfortunately, the event was the start of a half-baked supernatural plot that was poorly grafted onto the story. The first Ripper murder didn’t occur until over 200 pages in (the book is only about 350 pages long) and the plot after that is so convoluted and ridiculous it’s difficult to describe. The ultimate defeat of Jack the Ripper is probably the most absurd part as it is accomplished with the use of some painted backdrops, a double, and a Scottish Castle.

The Dracula Dossier is quite possibly the worst book I have ever read and I mourn for the trees that died to produce it. show less