This is a very creative and fun extension to the Dracula story! I love Dracula, so I was a little nervous starting into this; but the author did an amazing job both honoring the original, and giving the reader something new. I would recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Bram Stoker's Dracula!

i love the story of renfield and dracula so was very excited to read this!!! i loved learning the intricacies of renfield and dracula that you don’t see in the movies. this paired very well with the season

Update: Added TikTok link below. My personal rating: 4.5 stars

Tim Lucas captures the time and place of Dracula, and I was intrigued by the sessions between Renfield and Seward. Seward's notes and the transcripts of Renfield’s oral histories create a dynamic account.

My favorite parts of the book are the wondrous supernatural moments. I found the extensive grim material of Renfield's early years rough going for personal reasons. As the suspense intensified, the book captivated me completely. Lucas performed a masterful feat in integrating parts of the original text of Dracula with his own insightful exploration of Renfield. He has great talent, and the characterizations, dialogue, events, and brooding, disturbing atmosphere rang true throughout the book

The final chapters are brilliant. There’s a level of perception, an exquisite unity, and a finesse of orchestration that combine to render the novel uniquely satisfying. We’re in the realm of haunting deep truths and universal fantasies. I flashed on Robert Graves, Joseph Campbell, and Carl Jung.Lucas crafted an ultimately beautiful book out of disturbing and challenging subject matter–and made it feel organic to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a triumph.

Thank you, Riverdale Avenue Books, for the ebook review copy via NetGalley. These are my unbiased opinions.

I am a great fan of Dracula and I started reading this book a bit afraid of what I may find, for I had read quite a few negative reviews. After reading the book I must say I am amazed by both book and how well it complets the work of Bram Stocker.
I really liked the way Renfield went from a scared child to a curious preteen full of both hope and hatred, always unaware of the darkness that stalked him. Even as an adult, Renfield seems lost between his own morals and his desire not only to belong, but also to be known.

Dark and twisty! This backstory on Stoker’s Renfield is smart, twisted, and complementary in such a fun and creative way. This is a retelling of the classic horror Dracula from the perspective of the supporting character who, as the author states, has been shown in many lights since his inception - most recently in a more comedic light. This Renfield is true to the original, mad and deranged character. Bram Stoker’s Dracula does not provide much by way of Renfield’s backstory. Tim Lucas enlightens the reader with answers to the question - who is Renfield and how did he become the wretched servant to Dracula?

I thoroughly enjoyed the delivery method— a weaving of Dr Seward’s journal, the transcription of Renfield’s sessions with Dr Seward, and Renfield’s own journal, as the mystery of who this demented character is unraveled. If only the good Dr and his friends - Professor Van Helsing, Jonathan and Mina Harker, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey Morris - had seen him for what he truly was sooner, perhaps Dracula’s assault on England could’ve been thwarted.

Now I need to reread Stoker’s Dracula to thoroughly enjoy the overlapping of the story!

Thank you to NetGalley and Riverdale Avenue Books for the ARC of this newly revised edition of the Book of Renfield in exchange for an honest review.

I really like this book!
Although I know it wasn't written by Bram Stoker, it's incredible how very much like Bram Stoker that Tim Lucas writes this story.
The perspective of this life from Renfield's pov adds a little more depth to the character and allows the reader to see more of this character who was instrumental in the success of Dracula, the man, rather than being a second thought.
I haven't always thought much of Renfield because of the overshadowing by Dracula, but this shines a light on the character that was secondary to the story of the vampire.
Hats off to Mr Lucas!

If you're a fan of Dracula or vampires as a genre, this is a fabulous read! Spooky, creepy, and a great book that keeps you invested until the end!

The Book of Renfield serves as a perfect companion to Dracula. I like how the writing feels extremely similar. While there is a bit of retelling through the eyes of John Seward, the focus is more on an oral history of Renfield's life. Through captivating storytelling, Renfield is beautifully portrayed as a tragic hero. The questions of how Dracula becomes Renfield's 'lord and master' are finally explained and if there was any benefit to Renfield from the association.
Would recommend to fans of Dracula and gothic literature in general.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for an advance ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

So I watched the movie Renfield the beginning of this year and I absolutely loved it and then I came across this book so I had to request it and I’m so glad I did this. This is a beautifully written, Suffolk Gothic and I’m just obsessed and you will be too.

I'm a fan of Dracula the novel as well as the popular movie rendition of it staring Winona, Keanu, Anthony.
This book goes quite well with those two so if you enjoyed them you will definitely like this book of Renfield.
The book of Renfield is exactly that - the life of Renfield according to his own confessional account as told to Dr. Seward during his time in the asylum. It also contains the Doctors version of the story from his notes. I really enjoyed learning of Renfield's entire upbringing before his beginnings with the Count. It gives so much detail into the mind of this poor soul and what he was dealt with in life and his wants to just be loved. This is 75% about Renfield's life and Dr. Seward's relationship with his patient. The other 25 involves the other characters that are well known already and their interactions with Renfield and the Dr.
I fully recommend this book and plan to find a physical copy to put alongside my Dracula book. If you really like Dracula I suggest you give this one a read. It's worthy of the 5 stars.
I'd like to thank the Author for this fascinating tale. The publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a ebook arc.

A wonderful addition to the vampire literary canon and to the Dracula mythos. I read this when it first came out in 2005 and my opinion hasn’t changed a bit. It’s a wonderful novel about regular people facing an unimaginable horror. Highly recommended.

Creepy, this book scuttles up your spine and right into the gray matter of your brain. Once it latches on you can't stop reading. As a fan of horror, especially the older horror, I can say that this easily will become a favorite of many who love the genre. Gothic and folklorish with a clever twisting like a knife to the gut. Loved it!

I really enjoyed this story of Renfield which gives life to an age-old character many found interesting and mysterious. A supporting character rarely gets this much attention in any story, but sometimes, one will peek out of the tale and stay within our thoughts long after “the end.”

The author did a fantastic job of giving us a character who starts off weak and pitiful, who builds himself into something larger but reminds us when we reach too far for the wrong reasons without healing the demon festering for attention, we only nurture a beast slithering in the waters of our psyche.

There were some areas that seemed to drag a little slower but overall, this is a beautifully crafted story matching the style of the original Dracula with painstaking accuracy and attention to detail. I’m excited and proud to add it on the shelf beside Bram Stoker.

This book was fantastic! I did not want it to end, and it took me completely into Stoker’s world. Tim Lucas brought Renfield to life with his storytelling. Thank you!

This being my first review on Netgallery, I can only hope to be able to do the author justice, without spoiling the story.

Being an avid fan of Dracula, I was very interested, and more than a little wary, about wading into an account written more than 200 years after, from the presumed perspective of one of my favorite supporting characters, R.M. Renfield. Being fortunate enough to receive an advance viewing, I delved deeply into the world resurrected by Tim Lucas, being doubly thrilled to see the perspective of another personal favorite, the (in my opinion) often underrated and at times ill-perceived Doctor Jack Seward.
Tim Lucas is able to recreate the depth of feeling evident throughout the pages of the original Dracula with uncanny success, his meter and cadence something that would have granted Stoker concern that his manuscript might have been overshadowed by its release. The pages written in Doctor Seward's hand are so articulately expressed, and so measured in the scientific mentality of the time period, that one might actually believe he were reading a firsthand account. And I cannot speak highly enough of the expansion and growth of Seward as a character, fleshing him out as a whole and appropriate protagonist where I have always felt Stoker had somewhat slighted him.
Renfield's story itself, while veering away from that little which we know of the character from Dracula's text, offers a fresh, if somewhat fanciful new perspective on the character himself. Again, Lucas' ability to make a character seem flesh and blood with only the tools of type and time makes Renfield shine, and throughout various points, his interactions with Seward, and expressions of personality made it seem like I was in the room with him as he recalled the events which had shaped him. I was doubly impressed that little of the text was spent rehashing Dracula - a concern with any form of retrospective writing that are based on classics - and more about who he was beforehand, again gifting greater depth to an already powerful character.
When I finished, and especially after reading the author's Afterward, which detailed the difficult path to publication for this novel, I was elated to have been able to enjoy its triumph. Highly, Highly recommended; Tim Lucas has been added to my list of authors to watch.

This book is set up as a framed narrative, with the beginning and ending told from the POV of Doctor Seward’s great grandson who discusses how the current work came to be and includes a forward written by Dr. Seward. This was fun as it not only set up and closed the work in a satisfying way, but also played upon the way the original work was set up using journal entries and explained how this book only came into existence in the 21st century. Passages from Dracula are incorporated throughout this work, more heavily towards the end. The author left these bolded to differentiate between the two texts, but he otherwise seamlessly molded them into his own tale.

The author did an excellent job at harnessing the tone and feel of the original work, which made this companion book feel as if it were written contemporaneously with the original. I also liked how odd it got in places but that the author didn’t seek to explain every little thing. This left the reader wondering did these things actually happen, or was Renfield always somewhat “mad” from the beginning? I also appreciated the author’s explanation for a few of the scenes he included that I disliked due to their somewhat sexual, off-putting nature (nothing really graphic). These scenes at first felt out of place to me which is why I didn’t prefer them, but after reading the author’s note their context made sense.

If you enjoy Dracula, especially the original text, then I highly recommend checking out this work. I do think this book would work best if you’ve read Dracula, and I even reread it just before picking this one up which certainly elevated this experience. My thanks to NetGalley and Riverdale Avenue Books for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.