“Hidden treasures are revealed by an eerie luminescence in the form of cold blue flames on the night—that is, tonight—when evil holds sway.”
So says Count Dracula to Jonathan Harker upon their meeting at the Borgo Pass on the eve of the Feast of Saint George. But after taking the Englishman to see the phenomenon and being taken aback at the sight of his handsome face seemingly radiating, rather than reflecting, the unearthly cool glow, the Count unexpectedly finds himself coveting a newfound hidden treasure.
Thus, the first novella in the Dracula/Harker series begins reimagining Bram Stoker’s seminal Gothic horror story as a gay Gothic romance. Featuring the same character names, settings, chronology, epistolary format, and Victorian prose style as Dracula but telling a much different tale exploring themes of sexual identity, forbidden desire, societal repression, and personal acceptance and transformation, this installment, as subtitled, recounts the pair’s journey from Transylvania’s Borgo Pass to England’s shore at Whitby. A story of desire, danger, and the undead, it will tear at your heartstrings—assuming your heart does not break first!
About the Dracula/Harker Novellas
Originally, my reimagining of Bram Stoker's Dracula as a gay Gothic romance was to have been a novel. Unfortunately, its writing proved arduous and slow, so I changed the format to a trilogy of novellas to start telling the story sooner rather than later. Subtitled From Transylvania to England, this first novella covers the events from Jonathan Harker's alighting at the Borgo Pass in Transylvania, Romania, to Count Dracula's shipwreck on the shore of Whitby, England. Although only one third of the narrative and necessarily ending with cliffhangers, this installment does conclude various themes at its end to give readers some sense of closure instead of just teasing things to come. The subsequent novellas will continue to parallel the major events of the original plot and be subtitled by the locations starting and ending their stories. After the final novella is published, the series may be made available in novel format. But for now, a serial’s episodic nature, reminiscent of classic penny dreadfuls, holds a certain appeal.
