TRADE PAPER REVIEWS
date: 19 August 2010 at 11:55:56 - 0 comments

Gregorio’s fourth outstanding historical!

Written in the understated tradition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula...

...a page-turner with bite. 

“Unholy Awakening”  will be released in the USA by our publisher St Martins-Minotaur on September 28th, but advance reviews have started coming in from the trade papers. The first will appear in the Library Journal.

September 10, 2010

Gregorio, Michael. Unholy Awakening. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Oct. 2010. c.464p. ISBN 9780312625023. pap. $14.99. M

When the body of a woman, marked with suspicious puncture wounds in her neck, is found at the bottom of a well, fear rises among the citizens of Lotingen, Prussia. The investigation is in the hands of Hanno Stiffeniis (A Visible Darkness), but the authority lies with Napoleon’s occupying French army. Soon it is revealed that more victims, including three French officers, have died in a similar manner. Stiffeniis and his friend Lavedrine, a man of rank and ability in the army, must find the killer before the superstitious villagers turn against the beautiful Emma Rimmele, who’s renting the house where the first body was found. What fertile ground 19th-century Prussia provides for the vampire theme in Gregorio’s fourth outstanding historical! Written in the understated and often leisurely tradition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, this mystery pits the rational scholarly thought of the day against ancient superstition.

 VERDICT For historical fans seeking a page-turner with bite. [Library marketing.]