There is a devil in Castle Ravenloft. He rules over the valley with an iron fist and monstrous servants. He is looking for one thing, the woman he loved. When a man named Rudolph Van Richten sneaks into the castle and finds the Lord’s personal journal, the puzzle pieces start to come together.

I read this book because I was getting ready to run a Curse of Strahd DnD campaign and the general consensus in the community is that it is worthwhile to get into the head of your BBEG. And it was better than it had any right to be. I feel like there is a generally held belief that tie-in novels are a cash grab that are lazily written by freelance authors who probably don’t care about the property they are writing for. This book did not feel like that. I found the characters rich and developed, the atmosphere was palpable, and the narrative compelling. I liked this book so much, I looked up, and bought more of P.N. Elrod’s original works. 

You may be hesitant because this is a tie-in novel, but you don’t actually have to know anything about Dungeons and Dragons, or The Curse of Strahd to get a solid and compelling vampire story out of this book. 

(P.S. I have no idea why they used this art for the cover. It’s not really accurate to anything inside the book, but I mean, cool art.)