It takes a lot of courage to write a novel that is essentially Dracula from the perspective of Mina Murray Harker. What inspired you to take on this challenge?

From the first time I read Stoker’s Dracula in my teens, I just knew that Mina Harker, Dracula’s obsession, was not satisfied with her role as the quintessential Victorian virgin. I knew that there had to be more to her than that. (I knew that there had to be more to any woman than that.) I revere Bram Stoker, but he actually wrote lines like, “A brave man’s blood is the best thing on earth when a woman is in trouble.” And he wrote them without a trace of irony. The man was brilliant, but had very little understanding of the female psyche. I normally write about actual historical figures, but an iconic literary character like Mina Harker is as real in the popular imagination as her nonfictional sisters, and I believe that these characters also merit some reexamination.

In the original Dracula novel Mina is rather one-dimensional…the cliché of the damsel in distress. How did you flesh out her history and character?

One of the main elements I knew I could bring to the story was a much more vivid and realistic portrait of a woman’s experience in the 1890s. The dialogue about women’s rights was everywhere in the culture, and while some women took to the streets to protest their lack of legal rights, others clung feverishly to traditional ways. It was a very heated time, and a fascinating and difficult time to be female. Where would Mina be in all this, I asked myself? At this point in my career, having written six books about women, I know what it takes to create a plausible psychology for a female character from a past era. I made my usual substantive study of the times, reading as many documents from the period and studying the art, culture, design, sexual and social mores, religious beliefs, customs, and laws concerning the rights, or lack thereof, of women. From that brew of information came the character Mina.

As you know from reading the book, the scenes in the asylum are very important, both in terms of plot and theme. So I scoured the archives of late 19^th century insane asylums so I could make those scenes in the book vivid. I also studied the Victorian fascination with the metaphysical.

You obviously are not afraid of writing about gore, sex or horror. Were you worried that some of the Christian imagery (including the discussion of Christ’s blood and resurrection) would drive away readers?

I don’t worry about scaring readers off. I trust the reader to comprehend the larger themes of the book, and let’s face it, if you are picking up a book that promises to be a gothic novel about vampires, you’d better be prepared to read some dark stuff. The Dracula myth has always been rife with Christian symbolism, with the vampire being the evil non-Christian lost soul, versus the human victims, the “saved souls,” who repel him with holy water and the cross. I wanted to disentangle the vampire from that paradigm and complicate it with some dark truths from history. As Mina says in the prologue, “We must fear monsters less and be warier of our own kind.”

One theme of the novel that I couldn’t help but notice was Mina’s sleepwalking, as well as the vivid subject matter of her dreams. Was the sleepwalking a reference to the early horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? Was Mina’s sleepwalking key in establishing the atmosphere and mood of Dracula in Love?

I also write screenplays and have been heavily influenced by film and theater (and opera), and I’d love to claim the one you mentioned, but it just isn’t true! But yes, Mina’s sleepwalking is absolutely key in establishing not only her character, but the arc of her character. Mina is terrified of her “true self,” which in the beginning, she only allows to come forth when she is asleep. I begin the book with Nietzsche’s quote, “You must become who you are,” and while I believe that is true for everyone, it is especially true for Mina. That is what happens to her during the course of the book; she embraces her true self.

I also began the book with a sleepwalking incident because I wanted to throw the reader off balance. I wanted the scene to be disturbing, disorienting, and to establish that this is not your grandmother’s Mina Harker.

Would you personally classify Dracula in Love as a feminist novel?

By definition, I suppose it must be. I set out to rehabilitate Mina from an idealized Victorian virgin to a fully realized, powerful, sexual woman. I endowed her with a supernatural past of her own as a means to restore female power to the Dracula myth. It’s a classic tale retold from the female point of view, so in that way, it’s a feminist novel. But I have also been heartened by the number of men who really like the book and who appreciate the more fully realized, sexualized Mina Harker. She is more complex, challenging, and alluring.

Another theme that I noticed was the attempt by medical experts in the novel to explain vampirism and the power of mortal blood. The character of Von Helsinger is certainly an example. Were you trying to give vampires an air of authenticity, or were you trying to show the helplessness of science in the face of unrelenting, unknown horror?

Great question. I was attempting to do both. I wanted to bring the historical and mythological roots of blood-drinking into the story. But it was very important to me to leave room for the inexplicable. I am one who accepts life’s mysteries. I do not want everything explained in material or scientific terms. I do believe that the unseen is more powerful than the corporeal, and I actually feel sorry for people who slough off the beauty of mysticism. How do they live without mystery, God, or magic? I would be deeply despondent if I thought that the material world and quotidian human existence was all there is. So I am always working on two levels: solid research based on fact, balanced with a sense that no matter how hard we try to know, to theorize, to explain, some things are beyond human comprehension. However, there is also a sense in Dracula in Love that if we try to cultivate these intuitive gifts and if we embrace the mysteries, our own powers will be enhanced.

There is a thin, thin line between sexy and smutty. Dracula in Love has its fair share of sex, but you keep it tasteful. How did you accomplish this?

The obvious answer is that I am sexy but not smutty.

Seriously speaking, Stoker’s Dracula is seething with sensuality. The vampire’s kiss is a metaphor for the obvious. Because I was turning the story inside out and exposing its underbelly, I thought it was important to confront the sexual aspects in a direct way. In the 1890s, women’s desires were considered aberrations. Asylums for the insane were full of women committed for what we now consider normal sexual desires. I wanted to express what could not be expressed in Mina’s day—joyous, erotic, unbridled female sexual pleasure. I am a lyrical, literary novelist. If I can write descriptions of other evocative experiences, then why not apply that ability to writing about sex?

Do you feel that a person has to read Dracula before they read your novel?

No, the novel stands on its own. It might be a richer experience if one is familiar with Stoker’s tale, but many readers gobble up Dracula in Love without knowing the original. I think it would be rather fun to read them in reverse order. I have heard from many readers who say that Dracula in Love inspired them to go back to the original. I think that’s marvelous.

Victorian London is always the perfect setting for romantic Gothic horror. What sort of research did you perform to so vividly describe the settings of Dracula in Love?

I am a research freak. I moved to London and took a flat in a neighborhood that was developed in 1890, the year the book takes place. I wanted to breathe in the atmosphere as I wrote. As I said above, I made my usual substantive study of the era. I spent a lot of time in London’s tremendous museums, but also walking the streets of the city. Late Victorian London is still quite present here in terms of architecture and design. I also studied the Victorian fascination with the metaphysical, which plays a great part in the narrative of my book. Victorian culture is very complex; it’s lush, extravagant, and technologically advanced, and, restrained, contained, and superstitious, all at once. I set out to demonstrate that.

As for the parts of the book that take place elsewhere, I traveled to southern Austria, which was Bram Stoker’s first choice for Dracula’s home before he settled on Transylvania. I went to Whitby where so much of the original was set, and to the west coast of Ireland, the birthplace of Stoker’s mother. Strangely, I had set Sligo as Mina’s birthplace before I learned that Stoker’s mother was born there, and that he grew up hearing tales of ghost stories and Irish folklore.

What should we expect from your pen (and imagination) in the future?

More of this! I am itching to write more stories of Mina and the Count as they chase each other through space and time. I’d be very depressed if I thought I’d seen the last of these two.

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