Emma Carroll

About Author

Emma Carroll introduces her new fantasy adventure, Dracula and Daughters, which revisits vampire myths and the Dracula story to create a modern classic.

The bestselling novelist taught English for 20 years before following her dream of being an author. Her historical fiction novels now include Frost Hollow Hall, Letters from the Lighthouse and The Week at World's End and she has won or been nominated for awards including the CILIP Carnegie Medal, Young Quills and the Waterstones Book Prize. Emma lives in the Somerset hills with her husband and two terriers and writes for a living.

Interview

September 2025

Emma Carroll revisits Bram Stoke's Dracula with a witty, feminist twist in Dracula and Daughters (Faber Children's Books)

ReadingZone spoke with bestselling author Emma Carroll to find out why she has drawn on Bram Stoke's classic novel Dracula to create her own gothic adventure, Dracula and Daughters, and about moving from historical fiction into a new fantasy setting.

Dracula and Daughters: The city of Temstown has a past with vampires, so when a new vampire arrives in town, the citizens have stakes and garlic at the ready. Three young women think they might have a different answer to the problem, though - healing rather than destruction - but it turns out that not everyone in charge wants the vampire question to be resolved . . .

Read a chapter from Dracula and Daughters

Review: "Just when you think you know the work of Emma Carroll, she throws you a curveball and produces this fabulous gothic tale, with a very different take on the family of Dracula."

Q&A with Emma Carroll: Revisiting vampire lore in Dracula & Daughters

"I'd love to think readers might look into the history of vampirology, which is fascinating and really illuminates
just how much stories and beliefs tell us about people's fears."

1. You're well known as a writer of historical fiction; can you tell us what draws you to setting your stories in the past, and how your stories develop?

Historical fiction is my favourite genre to read, so that's probably my chief reason for writing it. Contrary to what a lot of people think, there's freedom in writing historical fiction. Setting a story in a time without internet, motorcars, antibiotics etc means your characters are challenged in ways that are surprising for modern readers. It adds to the drama and peril.

When I'm starting out on a story, the idea might be triggered by a famous person, or a key event. What I'm interested in specifically is how a child would experience these things, how life-changing it might be: that's the driving force of what I write.

2. What is your new book, Dracula & Daughters, about?

It's about three cousins who discover they're descendants of Count Dracula and have the power to heal vampires.

3. Why did you decide to revisit Bram Stoker's Dracula - and also to delve into a literary inspiration, rather than exploring a historic period?

I'm a self-confessed gothic fiction nerd! In my previous life as an English teacher, I would love teaching Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Dr Jekyll etc at GCSE and A level, so it has a very special place in my heart .

Having already dabbled with a re-imagining of 'Frankenstein' in my book Strange Star, published in 2016, I was ready to try out a fresh idea. This time I wanted the extra freedom of creating my own world from scratch, which wasn't something I'd fully done before but felt ready for the challenge. (and, as my editor will attest, it was a challenge!)

I'd first read Dracula years ago and wasn't massively taken with it, but when I went back to it a couple of years ago with this book idea in mind, it affected me differently: there were bits I truly loved, others bits infuriated me!

4. There is still a lot of historic detail in the story; when is it set and how did you go about researching this period - and particularly the lives of women at this time?

The readers will have their own thoughts on this, as I've not gone for a specific period, but details like the transport, domestic arrangements, medicine, clothing etc all point to it being C19th. For research, I drew on my knowledge of the classics and Victorian history, though for the most part used my imagination.

5. We love that you've taken a more feminist angle on vampires in this novel. Why did you decide to put three girls - Mina, Buffy and Bella - at the centre of the action, and can you tell us a little about them?

In 'Dracula', there's a cast of noisy, not altogether effective men who try to save the life of Lucy Westenra. Mina Harker, the wife of one of these men - and best friend to Lucy - is the quiet, capable force they all come to depend on. She is the true hero of the story, so it made sense to me that my Mina shares both her name and some of her characteristics. Bella gets her name from the Twilight series, Buffy, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both are very well-known, modern-day takes on the vampire genre, placing females front and centre in the story.

Put simplistically, in early vampire fiction, women tend to be either the victim or the monster; men, their defenders. I wanted my girls to be very much the ones with the answers.

6. How else have you played with traditional vampire tropes in your tale? Did you enjoy turning some of these ideas on their head?

I had endless fun with vampire tropes, yes! Pretty much all cultures have their own version of the vampire myth. Some of the tropes are similar - lavender and silver as protection, for instance, some are completely unique. It meant I was able to use the more common ones, whilst also creating a few of my own, especially when I was writing The Vampire Healer's Handbook, which is where my characters realise there are five core types of vampire, each with different behaviours and characteristics.

7. The setting is wonderfully foreboding, too, with the graveyard south of the river. Do you have a place in mind for where the novel is set?

The city of Temstown is very loosely based on London, the Tems being an old English name for the river Thames. The graveyard in the book is a blend of Highgate Cemetery's drama, the crowded layout of the churchyard at Heptonstall and that of my own village church, which is a beautiful, peaceful, overgrown place that I walk through with my dogs every evening.

8. What kinds of discussions would you like Dracula & Daughters to encourage?

I'd love to think readers might look into the history of vampirology, which is fascinating and really illuminates just how much stories and beliefs tell us about people's fears. It's no coincidence that Bram Stoker and Sheridan Le Fanu were both Irish, writing in the C19th about blood-sucking monsters. Or that John Polidori's Lord Ruthven - the first time a vampire was depicted as an aristocrat - was based on Lord Byron.

Vampires often represent something 'other,' an enemy or an unknown force. In my story, three girls challenge systems of male power by using their own strengths to become something unique and original, rather than simply aspiring to be female versions of men.

The story's also about trying to understand and recover from a problem, instead of assuming annihilation is the best approach.

9. Will we be hearing more about Dracula & Daughters? Can you give us a glimpse into what you have planned?

Dracula & Daughters is the first book in a planned trilogy. I'm currently writing the second book which takes us to Whitby, where our trio are called upon to heal the most dangerous type of vampire, the elemental. The final book is set in Transylvania and brings all generations of the Dracula family together for the first time.

10. Where do you go to inspire new stories and characters in your downtime? What do you enjoy doing when you're away from your desk?

For the sake of questions like this, I probably should invent an exciting hobby - skydiving or goat racing! In fact, my day to day life involves family, food, reading, a bit of telly, and with the state of the world, currently, I'm very thankful for my little corner of peace. I'm also owned by two very energetic terriers so dog walks are my most tried and tested approach for thinking through any knotty writing problems.

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