[Book Review] The Beast of London by L.D. Goffigan

The Beast of London is a Dracula retelling and the first book of the Mina Murray series. Mina Murray has once lived an adventurous life, but after a tragedy that happened in Transylvania, she moved to London. She is now a school teacher and she is engaged to Johnathan Harker. Mina loves Johnathan, but is struggling to fit into the upper class London society. Suddenly her past comes into her present life when Johnathan is taken by vampires and Mina will do whatever it takes to rescue him.

**Full disclosure: I have been sent this book by the author for an honest review, but that does not in any way shape or form affect my opinions or thoughts.**

4.5 STARS

This book was such an amazing retelling of Dracula, and I absolutely loved it. It has been quite some time since I have read Dracula, or even a full on vampire book, so I was worried that I wouldn't be interested. I am so happy that I was wrong, because this was so much fun.

First, the writing. I really enjoyed the writing style of the author, it was simplistic but at times really pretty. I was easily welcomed into the story with the writing and it had me hooked pretty early on. The dialogue was really well written and the action scenes were impressive. One of the two cons I have about this book and the reason why I felt like I couldn't give it a five star rating is that I don't think I got to know the characters as well. Mina is the exception to this, I definitely think we got to know her well but I think that is because we are in her point of view the entire book. However, when it came to Abe, Seward, or even Johnathan I felt like we didn't really get to know them. Granted, it's the first in the series, so this could change depending who is in the next book. I just wish the reader got to know the characters a little bit more, because when they're in danger or going through something emotional I felt disconnected so I wasn't as affected.

The characters, even if we didn't get to know them well, were still a lot of fun. Goffigan does a good job making them their individual characters, and their personalities did shine through enough that made me want more. I think I loved Mina so much because we got to know her so well, especially in the beginning with Johnathan and his mother. I think her relationship with Johnathan was cute, but I want more, and I am excited to learn more about her background with Abe. I liked that in a really emotional scene, Abe shows emotion. I appreciated that because I expected the stoic action hero lack of emotion because "men don't show their feelings" type of reaction. But instead he cries, and he's heartbroken, and I think that was telling of the character and really made me want to know more about him. Also, I mentioned this in my notes, I would easily read a book about Radu and Anara's backstory.

The other con I had with the story, was this moment we have close to the end of the book. I don't know exactly how I feel about it just yet, we will see how it plays out in the sequel, but for now I am leaning towards not being a huge fan of it. For me it felt cheesy and it brought my enjoyment of the story as a whole down a little. I mean obviously not a lot, considering I am still giving it a high score, but I definitely felt a little bummed. Granted, it could make more sense in the next book and I could change my mind. It does open a lot of questions I am hoping are answered in the second installment of this series, which I definitely want to pick up sometime this summer. Overall, I enjoyed The Beast of London, and I am excited to read more by the author.

Also, I read this book with my friend Erica Robyn Reads, so you can check out her review here where you can get another perspective of the book and decide for yourself if you want to pick up The Beast of London by L.D. Goffigan.

Thanks for reading!