Book Specifications
Format: Novella (the first in a series)
Language: English
Word Count: 44,400+
Genres: Gay Romance, Gay Fiction, LGBTQ+ Romance, LGBTQ+ Fiction, Queer Romance, Queer Fiction, Gothic Romance, Gothic Fiction, Paranormal Romance, Vampires
Writing Style: complex, dense sentences—each of which does the work of a paragraph—depicting beautiful, unsettling scenes
Publication Date: June 10, 2025
eISBN: 979-8-9991585-0-5
Back Cover Blurb
“Hidden treasures are revealed by an eerie luminescence in the form of cold blue flames on the night—that is, tonight—when evil holds sway.”
So says Count Dracula to Jonathan Harker upon their meeting at the Borgo Pass on the eve of the Feast of Saint George. But after taking the Englishman to see the phenomenon and being taken aback at the sight of his handsome face seemingly radiating, rather than reflecting, the unearthly cool glow, the Count unexpectedly finds himself coveting a newfound hidden treasure.
Thus, the first novella in the Dracula/Harker series begins reimagining Bram Stoker’s seminal Gothic horror story as a gay Gothic romance. Featuring the same character names, settings, chronology, epistolary format, and Victorian prose style as Dracula but telling a much different tale exploring themes of sexual identity, forbidden desire, societal repression, and personal acceptance and transformation, this installment, as subtitled, recounts the pair’s journey from Transylvania’s Borgo Pass to England’s shore at Whitby. A story of desire, danger, and the undead, it will tear at your heartstrings—assuming your heart does not break first!
About the Dracula/Harker Novellas
Originally, my reimagining of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a gay Gothic romance was to have been a novel. Unfortunately, its writing proved arduous and slow, so I changed the format to a series of novellas to start telling the story sooner rather than later. Subtitled From Transylvania to England, this first novella covers the events from Jonathan Harker’s alighting at the Borgo Pass in Transylvania, Romania, to Count Dracula’s shipwreck on the shore of Whitby, England. Although only one third of the narrative and necessarily ending with cliffhangers, this installment does conclude various themes at its end to give readers some sense of closure instead of just teasing things to come. The subsequent novellas will continue to parallel the major events of the original plot and be subtitled by the locations starting and ending their stories. After the final novella is published, the series may be made available in novel format. But for now, a serial’s episodic nature, reminiscent of classic penny dreadfuls, holds a certain appeal.
The Premise of the Dracula/Harker Novellas
“How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you’ll have to deal with me.”—a furious Count Dracula raging at his three so-called brides about Jonathan Harker in Dracula by Bram Stoker
What gay man would not want occasion to speak these words or hear them spoken of him in a fit of passion? Dracula/Harker posits Count Dracula and Jonathan Harker did.
An Excerpt from Dracula/Harker: Part I
To get a sense of the writing, read the first two paragraphs of Chapter I below.
Count Dracula’s Journal
May 4th and 5th
By way of introduction, my English solicitor stumbled headlong into my arms. To be fair, the young man could not be faulted. He had just been shoved out of the still swaying diligence into lamplit darkness. Fortunately, I stood ready to catch him, having arrived early to thwart any attempt by the coachman to forestall our rendezvous. Unfortunately, my guest’s plight caught me off guard, and I unthinkingly stepped forward, reached out, and scooped him up in my arms. Only after my hands had slid up his sides and back and my fingers had strayed up his neck to comb through his hair and cradle his head did I realize my mistake. But by then, the unexpected intimacy had overwhelmed me, and I could not resist the urge to drink him in.
In a moment suspended in time, I inhaled the scent of his hair deep into my nostrils, grazed his ear with my lips, and peered down to spy the quickening pulse of his throbbing carotid. When he leaned back in my embrace to look me full in the face, I gave into impulse even more and gazed into his wide eyes, focusing beyond them to touch, penetrate, and probe his mind. Still hooked by the crooks of my elbows, he shuddered and gasped and then relaxed and sighed as he relented, opened to me, and began to share himself. And by the gathering gloom, mere feet from the coach, I would have had the handsome Englishman right then and there. But to my utter consternation, I broke off. No, not him, I thought. Anyone else, yes; but not him—and certainly not here, not now, not like this. For I had sensed his involuntary reaction—the rush of blood and tumescence of flesh—that he doubtless would deny, and rather than take what I wanted, I desired he reveal himself of his own volition—well, perhaps with some prodding on my part. Thus resolved, I awoke from reverie to reality, shaking off lust to take up longing and seeing in the anxious, bewildered eyes darting over my face that I did not suffer my forbearance alone.
View Videos for Dracula/Harker: Part I
Short promotional videos for Dracula/Harker: Part I are available for viewing as:
Buy Dracula/Harker: Part I
The ebook of Dracula/Harker: Part I is available for purchase at the following online retailers:
It is also available via ebook distributors OverDrive, Hoopla, Palace Marketplace, CloudLibrary, BorrowBox, and Odilo. Check with your library or school for availability.
You can also visit Dracula/Harker: Part I’s Books2Read page for links to online ebook retailers and distributors.
Read Reviews of or Review Dracula/Harker: Part I
Read reviews of or review Dracula/Harker: Part I on Goodreads.
About the Author
Unlike many gay romance authors, Mark Zidzik, also known as 邱翼德 (Chiū Yì-Dé), knows firsthand what being gay in a heterosexist world and living among homophobes is like. This imbues his writing with reticence, rawness, and rage that speak to the experiences of men who dare to love men in the face of condemnation and worse.
Follow the Author
Follow Mark Zidzik on the following social media platforms and websites:
Contact the Author Regarding a Permission Request
Send your permission request to the Gmail account m a z i d z i k. Other inquiries—especially those from book cover designers, digital marketers, and anyone else thinking to make money off my work or at my expense—will not be read, assuming they are not automatically filtered and deleted by Gmail first.
"Dracula/Harker: A Gay Gothic Romance Inspired by Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'" by Mark Zidzik 