ARC Review: The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer by Lucille Turner

Title: The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer
Author: Lucille Turner
Publication: November 19th 2016 by Hengist Press
Genre: Historical Fiction
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Rating: 5/5

When Vlad Dracula arrives at the court of the Ottoman Sultan, Murad II, his life is turned upside down. His father, Dracul, cannot protect him, and he must battle his demons alone...

1442: The Ottoman Turks are advancing through the Balkans with Vienna in their sights and Constantinople, the Orthodox Greek capital, within their grasp. Dracul, ruler of Wallachia (present-day Romania), will pay almost any price to save his country, but he will not surrender to the blackmail of the cardinals of Rome; he will not betray the Greeks.

When Vlad, his middle son, begins to show signs of the ancestral sickness, Dracul vows to deliver him into safety. But time is running short. To some, Vlad Dracula is a strigoi, the worst of all evils; to others, he is the son of a righteous man. Confrontational, charismatic and manipulative, he tests family and enemy alike. Surely he is destined for power, but of what kind? The Catholics are afraid of him; the Greeks hold the scrolls that tell of his past. And when the Sultan calls for the services of a soothsayer, even the shrewd teller of fortunes is unprepared for what he learns.

I've always been super interested in the history of Vlad Dracula and the Ottoman Empire so I really enjoyed reading this story. This book was well-written and also very well-researched, it was easy to like the book. There was nothing in it that I disliked.

The relationship in this book between Vlad Dracula and his father Vlad Dracul as well as the one  between Mehmet and his father Murad was striking to me. I thought the link between these sons and fathers were very similar. I really liked that because these relationships were what probably intrigued me the most in the story.

As always I love reading any book that takes place during this particular era (15th century). I also thought that the link between Vlad and vampyrs (or strigoi) was also interesting to read about. I know that even to this day there are rumors of vampyrs in Romania. I can definitely see why Bram Stoker used Vlad Dracula as his inspiration and I liked how the author incorporated it into the story.

The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer by Lucille Turner was every bit as amazing as I hoped it would be. I've been reading more and more historical fiction this year and I have yet found another favorite book in the genre. This book was excellent and definitely worth to read!

       About the Author:

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I was born in Bournemouth in 1964. My first book, Gioconda, which I began in 2007 and finished in 2010, is a novel about the life of Leonardo da Vinci. Although some of Leonardo’s work was familiar to me then, the idea only came to me when I fell upon a print of the Mona Lisa in the aisles of a supermarket one day. One avenue of research led to another, and since then Gioconda has been translated into several languages, winning Spain’s Hislibris prize for historical fiction in 2012.
For the past few years I have been busy writing my second book, The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer. I sometimes review other people's work for Bookmunch, and enjoy being surprised by things I didn’t think I’d like, be it books or new experiences. And of course I love history.