There are at least two stories you can always count on to be repeated when it comes to vampires--and no, Twilight isn't one of them.
 One will always be the story of Vlad Tspes, the original Count Dracul, and depending on whom you ask, either the scourge of Transyvannia or the savior of. But the other story will always be the story of Hungary's Blood Countess, Erzsebet Bathory, who allegedly murdered hundreds of girls and young women women...for their blood.

Countess Bathory is alleged to have killed six hundred young girls, bathing in their blood and drinking it to retain her youth and beauty. Bathory was convicted of the murders and bricked in the castle keep until her death four years later.

Told in the first person, Blood Countess by Rebecca Johns tries to paint the story of Bathory in a sympathetic way, in revealing the madness of a woman who truly believes that she has been framed for the murders. Telling the story from Bathory's point of view allows us to get a fictionalized view of the woman's upbringing and marriage--from an abusive, mad mother to an abusive husband. Johns tells the story of a woman who may have been driven mad by outside sources and folk lore of the time.

You can find a copy of Blood Countess available through all online booksellers, as well as locally through Joseph-Beth Booksellers in the Lexington Green Mall on Nicholasville Road or Barnes & Noble in the Hamburg Pavilion Shopping Center on Man o' War Blvd.

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