The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn

Finished: 13/09/10

Genre: Romance/Horror

Rated: A

Opening Sentence: ‘…"I afraid we must settle the problem of what to do with Theodora," my brother-in-law said with a weary sigh…’

Deanna Raybourn writes the Julia Gray series which I love. THE DEAD TRAVEL FAST is a standalone and it is very good indeed. Set in the mid 1800s, Theodora Lestrange leaves her Scottish home after the death of her grandfather and heads to Transylvania to visit a school friend, Cosmina who has invited her to help celebrate her upcoming engagement to Count Andrei Dragulescu. The invitation is a welcome one because Theodora needs to escape from the ‘get married and settle down’ or ‘help us raise the children’ expectations of her sister Anna and her husband William, and their ever expanding brood of children.

When she arrives at a small village nestled in a valley in the Carpathian Mountains she is collected by a horse and closed-in carriage. The horse has scars and she is told that they are from wolf attacks and that is why she is to travel in the carriage. Theodora travels through the dark, gloomy forest safely and arrives at the bottom of a stairway that leads up to an imposing castle that has seen better days. The steps are called the Devil’s Staircase and there are 1,400 of them to climb before she reaches the castle at the mountain summit. Here Theodora is greeted by Cosmina and introduced to her frail aunt, the countess, and the stunningly handsome Count.

Theodora settles in and is soon drawn into the intrigues of the castle and its small village, and quickly introduced to the local legends, lore and mysteries about resident werewolves and vampires. Theodora finds herself romantically drawn to the Count, who is not around much during the day, but the growing bond between the two is shattered with the discovery of the body of a servant girl with two bloody punctures near her neck and the blood drained from her body. Could the legends be true? The inhabitants of the Castle and village certainly think so; and Theodora soon finds herself participating in a gory midnight ceremony that involves putting a stake through the heart of the recently departed previous Count.

THE DEAD TRAVEL FAST is good, really really good, an old-school Gothic vampire romance that sends pleasant shivers of fear down your spine. Author, Dianne Raybourn has researched European myths and legends and has placed them into the book along with plausible scientific explanations. And far from being stereotypes of your average horror book, the characters come alive on the pages as they struggle with social expectations, respectability and forbidden attractions. Before the final solution is reached there are lots of twists and turns as the events swing between myth and fact while the suspense builds. So are there vampires and werewolves? Well you’ll have to read the book, but I will say this – there are some things that even science can’t explain!

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