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Outstanding
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Kirkus Reviews
Anne Rice, beware. There's a new Queen of the Night in town, and she's taking no prisoners.
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
Exotic locales, tantalizing history, a family legacy and a love of the bloodthirsty: it's hard to imagine that readers won't be bitten, too.
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Outstanding
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Bookslut Colleen Mondor
This book is beyond good, it is beyond anything I have read in ages. It is the best horror/suspense novel I have read in forever and more than that, it manages to elevate a clichéd old character from the basement of literary parody to the heights of literary grandeur that he has long deserved. All hail Elizabeth Kostova, she has made Dracula truly terrifying, and more importantly, historically significant, yet again.
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Favorable
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The Observer Jane Stevenson
Reads like a cross between Dracula and The Da Vinci Code.
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Favorable
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Houston Chronicle Michael D. Clark
Nearly impossible to put down once you crack the spine.
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Favorable
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Library Journal Patricia Altner
The writing is excellent, and the pace is brisk, although it sags a bit in the middle. [15 June 2005, p.58]
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Favorable
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Nancy Baker
There's no doubt that this is an extremely accomplished first novel.
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Favorable
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The New Yorker
Kostova's knowledge of occult arcana is impressive, and she packages her erudition in a graceful narrative that only occasionally lapses into melodrama.
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Favorable
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Boston Globe Peter Bebergal
The figure of Dracula has returned in grand style: regal, evil, and well read beyond compare.
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Favorable
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Salon Laura Miller
For the sophisticated reader it's a fine Bordeaux to Dan Brown's overcaffeinated Diet Coke.
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Favorable
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San Francisco Chronicle June Sawyers
Anyone who loves to become involved in the lives of fictional characters will find much to savor in this intricately plotted, delicately written novel.
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Favorable
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USA Today Carol Memmott
Before the sun sets, grab this book and take a long and satisfying drink.
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Favorable
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Chicago Tribune Jessica Treadway
Kostova's thorough research and lively narrative will compel many in search of a good story, richly told and not soon forgotten. [12 June 2005]
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Mixed
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Los Angeles Times Jon Fasman
Kostova handles the logistics of multiple story lines well, though unfortunately her narrators all speak in the same hyper-descriptive, overwrought prose. They're all somewhat disembodied — brains in jars, not quite fully realized. [5 June 2005]
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
There are a few too many junctures when you wonder if Kostova is going anywhere with her travelogue, and not quite enough when you feel the urgent menace of her cerebral, ruby-lipped Dracula.
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Mixed
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Washington Post Michael Dirda
The Historian is artfully constructed and atmospheric, yet nothing that happens in it is really all that surprising.
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Mixed
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The Independent Lesley McDowell
Ultimately, Kostova's addition to the postmodern take on historical fiction is just a little too respectful and surprisingly lacking in sensuality, given its subject matter.
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Mixed
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TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Helen Gordon
Elizabeth Kostova's story is in some ways over-simplistic, its moral universe too black-and-white; despite this, The Historian remains an enjoyably rambling Gothic novel, one filled with fascinating details of archaic vampire lore, the splendours of the Ottoman Empire and the beauty of the Romanian countryside. [22 Jul 2005]
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Unfavorable
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The New York Times Janet Maslin
The vampire's power to inflict misery pales beside that of the book's contorted narrative structure.
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Unfavorable
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Christian Science Monitor Yvonne Zipp
Overlong and prone to curious lapses of logic - for example, none of the main vampire hunters believes in God, yet all rely on crosses for protection - the novel ranks somewhere above most horror offerings but below serious literature.
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Unfavorable
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The New York Times Book Review Henry Alford
When, after many other allusions to historians and historicism, Kostova introduced a character whose last name is Hristova, I was tempted to run out to a pharmacy for some antihristomine.
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