House of Bathory

Solid historical thriller.

This story weaves together a retelling of the story of the Blood Countess Bathory with a present day thriller about a young psychiatric patient and her doctor. Daisy Hart is the teenage patient suffering from nightmares that cause her to wake up choking. Betsy Path is the psychiatrist treating her. But there is a deeper connection between the two the Betsy realizes and very soon they are both in great danger.

I give this book 3.5 stars. it started and ended strong but there were some passing and story issues in the middle that frustrated me. The frustration was not enough to make me stop reading and I'm glad of that. The end of the book was fast paced and I couldn't put the book down!

This story has two parallel threads, one concerns the evil deeds of the Countess of Bathory in the 17th century, the other concerns the desperate search by a psychoanalyst for her mother who disappeared under suspicious circumstances in Slovakia (or was it Hungary? or maybe Poland? This border hopping is quite hard to follow) and who just happens to be an historian researching her next book on the bloodthirsty Elizabeth Bathory. Add to that a mysterious old geezer with a silver tipped walking stick, a Goth teenager, Daisy, suffering from bloody dreams who follows her psychoanalyst, Betsy (Elizabeth - what a coincidence) Path into danger and her sister, Morgan, who looks remarkably like the Countess, and what have you got? A remarkably average and predictable book.

It is a pity, the book could have been so much more. However, the formula, the predictability and the dialogue, particularly in the 17th century, let it down. Having said that, it isn't a bad way to while away a wet Sunday afternoon as it is an easy read and if you haven't read many books of a similar formula, it could be quite gripping. For me personally, it was a disappointment.