Carmilla: The Wolves of Styria Paperback – January 28, 2013

This is still and will always be one of the great Vampire stories of all time. A classic among classics. The female equivalent to Dracula. Throw in an amazing gothic backdrop and you have a story that stays with you. As you get to know the characters and legends, it becomes a tale of friendship, first love and unquestionable evil. You feel for these girls, the pain and joy they suffer is palpable. A gothic love story for the ages, with blood and death thrown in to make a very fast and enjoyable read.The additional books after this original is fascinating. Author, David Brian has mashed the original with new material that follows the same characters. He has masterfully given life to the original gothic story. The characters have been fleshed out with more history and backgrounds of each person. It is amazing to be able to learn in detail how each character see’s and feels what is happening in their small Austrian town named Styria. It is a very boring place to live until it is plagued by a very strange illness that is effecting only young ladies of the village. The author also adds werewolf’s to the mix, which makes some great action filled pages. I liked how the book moves along by diary entries and letters back and forth between some characters. It definitely reminds me of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I really liked these books. The other 2 books are both written by Author, David Brian. The next book is “Carmilla: The Wolves of Styria” and “Carmilla: A Dark Fugue”. I read them in the order shown, the original, the wolves and last the fugue. If you know the original I think you could read the other 2 in whatever order you wish. They all center around Carmilla. Her story, the people that come in contact with her and the ways she chooses to destroy anyone around her.

I have not read the original tale so I cannot say what has been added or changed. I suspect the more sexual aspects are new and the werewolves seem to be an add-on. Still, I liked the sort of classic vampire story. We see the events through varying points of view and the technique works. I wish Laura, the heroine, had been less of a helpless lead character. I mean she fainted when trouble arose. The book is definitively a page turner and I enjoyed it.

Genuinely really enjoyed this, the addition of werewolves was interesting too. I had a great time reading it

My hope on picking this up was that it would be the book LeFanu MIGHT have written had he not been penning Carmilla in an age where most things had to go unspoken. I hoped for Carmilla with sex and violence and deeper, more fleshed out characters. I'm still hoping someone will write that book one day. Sadly, this book wasn't it. The werewolves were a weird and disjointed addition, the ending unsatisfying. Much like the original tale it left far too many questions unanswered. Who was the woman who posed as Carmilla's mother? What was Laura's eventual cause of death? These are just the first two off the top of my head that I had hoped would be addressed in a retelling of this classic but frustratingly ambiguous tale. Alas, they are not delved into at all. Instead we get a single scene that confirms Carmilla and Laura were sexually involved but it's stilted, as is the entire tenor of their relationship. You could see where the author was TRYING to go with this book but unfortunately they did not succeed.

Super good book. The prose just flows from the page and it paints a hauntingly beautiful picture of a different time and place that somehow manages to seem like you are but reflecting upon your own memories.

A very interesting, open-minded version of Carmilla. The plot is full of surprises. I certainly recommend it.

An enjoyable retelling of Carmilla, with nicely accurate period prose. The addition of new characters and an expanded plot, featuring vampires and werewolves, and an expansion of the relationship between Laura and Carmilla, created an intriguing, though bloody, gothic mystery.

I bought it expecting a complete rewrite, but It's just a bunch of extra paragraphs shoved in and added to make it longer and also include wolves. Carmilla is likened more to a succubus than a vampire, and the most graphic sex is with a disfigured man before she lets wolves eat him. Can't really say I was interested after that.