The Little Book Spy: Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco

How’s it going everyone. Today, I’ll be reviewing Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco. Its been a little bit since I finished the first book, but I knew that as soon as the final book in this series was published, I needed to binge read the rest of the series! It's taken me a little bit to get through the series because of my busy schedule, but whenever I could, I would jump right back into this series. Anyways, enough of me digressing, let's jump right in!

About the Book:
Title: Hunting Prince Dracula
Author: Kerri Maniscalco
Release Date: September 19, 2017
Series: Stalking Jack the Ripper #2
Genre: Historical
Pages: 418

My Rating: 5/5 ⭐️

Summary:
Following the grief and horror of her discovery of Jack the Ripper's true identity, Audrey Rose Wadsworth has no choice but to flee London and its memories. Together with the arrogant yet charming Thomas Cresswell, she journeys to the dark heart of Romania, home to one of Europe's best schools of forensic medicine...and to another notorious killer, Vlad the Impaler, whose thirst for blood became legend.

But her life's dream is soon tainted by blood-soaked discoveries in the halls of the school's forbidding castle, and Audrey Rose is compelled to investigate the strangely familiar murders. What she finds brings all her terrifying fears to life once again.

My Thoughts:
I was super excited to jump back into this series and the second book was no disappointment! The story picks up a month after the Ripper case, as Audrey Rose and Thomas travel to Romania to study forensic medicine at Bran Castle. The mood and the setting of the book was dark and eerie, it definitely was one of my favorite things about the second book. It brought the story to life in a whole new way. I loved how you were immediately thrown back into the action as well. There was a little bit more gore and gruesome scenes depicted throughout the second book, compared to the first, which tied perfectly into the gruesome myths and legends that this little village in Romania believed. With the history of Vlad the Impaler, the the killer was able to use the myths in order to commit these murders, which made it easy for everyone to believe that Vlad was back from the grave. One thing that I loved about these stories is the mystery aspect. The intrigue and suspense of trying to discover the killer made the story very enjoyable. Compared to the previous book, I was clueless to who the murder was this time, which made the mystery even better! I feel like there weren't as many clues as to who was committing the crimes, but when the killer was revealed, I was completely shocked!

For the characters, we do see some familiar faces in the book, but we also meet some new characters as well. We get to meet Thomas’s sister, Daciana. It was interesting to see how similar Thomas and Daciana were, you could tell immediately how these two were both cut from the same cloth. Then we have Ileana, who’s character surprised me the most. Her role in the story took me completely by surprise and how she was tied into Everything that was happening. As for the other forensic students, the headmaster and his ward, I think there were so many possibilities for each character being the murder, it was interesting to see how their roles played out in the story. I loved the slow burn romance between Audrey Rose and Thomas, even though we saw a little bit of what their relationship looked like in the beginning, you can tell how close they’ve grown from the first book to the second book. Overall, this series is becoming one of my favorites and I can’t wait to finish reading the rest of the series!

If you’re interested in checking out Kerri's pages, the links are below along with places you can get the book.