Ratings9
Average rating3.9
I don't usually give up on books but when I got to the scene where one of the Stoker kids is eating saltwater taffy in 1850s Ireland I knew it was time to tap out. There are numerous anachronistic errors throughout, some linguistical, some geographical, some historical but I gritted my teeth and tried to push through. “Saltwater taffy” (a term basically unknown in Ireland, a candy which Wikipedia tells me wasn't even invented in America until the 1880s) was the last straw. I guess I'll never know if Bram Stoker goes on to eat Twinkies and watch baseball.
* Numerous modern words and phrases, along with American spellings in what are supposed to be journal entries and newspaper reports
** Clontarf is described as being “bordered by a park to the east and with views of the ‘harbor' to the west” Any look at a map of Dublin will tell you how wrong that is.
*** Artane Castle was completely demolished in the 1820s; While photography existed in the mid 19th century, it was in its infancy and newspapers certainly weren't printing photographs, let alone of local criminals in what was then rural Ireland.