A review by radbear76
The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker

1.0

When I read Dracula in the seventh grade it was long, ponderous and difficult to get through. In the intervening years I assumed I felt this way because I was young at the time. In reading the Lady of the Shroud I discovered that the reason I felt this way was because Bram Stoker has a tedious writing style that comes close to boring the reader to death. Aside from the writing style and pace the novel can't decide what it is. The story begins as a paranormal mystery, than suddenly transitions to an action adventure, and then meanders into a a sci-fi Utopian nation building scheme. It has hints of male chauvinism and "The White Man's Burden" of lifting up the savages for good measure. The change being that rather than people of color benefiting from the wise white guy's leadership, it is the people of a fictional Balkan nation. I'm going to attribute this to era in which it was written, but leaving the quaint discrimination aside it still isn't worth reading.