The Historian

• By Elizabeth Kostova
• Read by Joanne Whalley, Dennis Boutsikaris, Rosalyn Landor,Martin Jarvis, Robin Atkin Downes, Jim Ward

Why did I ever want to win this book? It's abridged for heaven's sake! You know how I feel about abridged books! But enter and I! Won it too! 

What's the difference between the unabridged and abridged versions? 26 hours vs 11.5 hours. That's a lot of cutting!  (I didn't really feel it except maybe just at the end. Otherwise, it moved along quite nicely for me.)

Did the fact that Hachette Book Group put it out have anything to do with it? Probably, the Group has put out so many books in both written and audible formats that I have enjoyed.

The cover? You gotta admit it is a cool cover. And did you notice all the narrators?! (They were, as Tony the Tiger would say, grrrrrrrate!)

Hachette summarized the story this way:

Breathtakingly suspenseful and beautifully written, THE HISTORIAN is the story of a young woman plunged into a labyrinth where the secrets of her family's past connect to an inconceivable evil: the dark fifteenth-century reign of Vlad the Impaler and a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive through the ages. The search for the truth becomes an adventure of monumental proportions, taking us from monasteries and dusty libraries to the capitals of Eastern Europe-in a feat of storytelling so rich, so hypnotic, so exciting that it has enthralled listeners around the world.

I can't top that summation...it was all that was promised!  

Now I have to make a wee confession:  while I thought I would find this a good story, I did not expect to really enjoy it as much as I did! It is not a genre that I typically read but some of my best friends (book bloggers I trust) were really excited about it. Nosey me, just had to find out stirred them up! I was not disappointed! Maybe you should get nosey too.