My Dark Valentine

By Karen Essex

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Some stories refuse to fade.

Dracula in Love has followed me for years like a shadow—beautiful, intimate, and a little dangerous. When I first wrote it, I wanted to ask a simple but radical question: what if Mina Harker were not the dutiful Victorian heroine of Bram Stoker’s imagination, but a woman of appetite, agency, and secret power?

What if she were the vampire’s equal?

Long before “romantasy” became a defined genre, I was drawn to stories that braided history sensuality, and myth. I grew up loving gothic romance, the atmosphere, the longing, the tension between morality and desire. As a child, I was a Dark Shadows fan. But I wanted Mina to have her own interior life, with her own hunger, her own choices.

In Dracula in Love, the story unfolds entirely from Mina’s point of view. We see the Count not as a distant monster but as an obsession—an intoxicating, terrifying, irresistible one. The novel is an unapologetically sensual and emotionally intense, but beneath the romance is something deeper: a meditation on power. Who holds it. Who surrenders it. And what it costs a woman to claim her own.

Releasing this book again on Valentine’s Day feels exactly right.

Valentine’s Day celebrate sweetness, safety, predictability. Dracula in Love is none of those things. It is a darker Valentine for readers who believe love is transformative, destabilizing, even dangerous. For readers who want the heat as much as the heart.

This new edition has been lovingly refreshed with a new cover, updated formatting, and visual details that reflect the lush, gothic, Victorian world inside. I considered altering the ending, but ultimately left it intact. There is a larger vision unfolding, one that makes the original ending essential. I’m not ready to reveal it yet, but Mina’s story is not finished.

Whether you’re discovering Mina’s story for the first time or returning to her world, I hope this Valentine’s Day you’ll choose something a little decadent. Pour a glass of wine. Light a candle. Open a book that understands that love can be eternal, and that desire, once awakened, does not politely fade. Ever.

Some Valentines are made of chocolates and roses. Some are made of blood and silk. This one is mine.

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KAREN ESSEX is a national and international bestselling author whose novels spotlight history’s most fascinating and powerful women—those who shaped empires, commanded art, and seduced the world. The books are embraced by readers who crave both depth and passion in historical fiction.

STAY TUNED FOR HER UPCOMING NOVEL, RUN, DARLING, the untold story of the glamorous Gabor sisters' escape from Nazi occupied Europe to the United States and to celebrity.

Her work includes an acclaimed two volume biographical novel KLEOPATRA: The Early Years, the little known story of the princess’s rise to the throne; & PHARAOH: Book II of Kleopatra, focusing on the queen’s political acumen as well as her romances. LEONARDO'S SWANS, a global bestseller, puts Leonardo da Vinci’s rivalrous female muses at its core, aristocratic women who shaped the art and politics of the Italian Renaissance. The novel won Italy's prestigious Premio Roma for foreign fiction. STEALING ATHENA is a sweeping historical saga from the perspectives of two of history's most fascinating women who played key roles in the building and fate of Athens' greatest monuments.

DRACULA IN LOVE retells Bram Stoker’s classic tale from the perspective of Dracula’s obsession, Mina Harker, who surprises readers with her own supernatural lineage.

Also an award-winning journalist & screenwriter, Karen has written for Netflix, James Cameron and Fox Studios, Warner Bros, Sony, Paramount, and Fox TV. She was graduated from Tulane University with a BA in Theater, attended graduate school at Vanderbilt University, and received an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. A New Orleans native, she has also lived in London, Paris, and Los Angeles.