Bram Stoker's "Dracula" has been reimagined, reinvented and turned inside-out over the past century -- and with "Stoker's Manuscript," it has gone meta. 
 Royce Prouty's debut novel mixes fiction, fact and facts about fiction in one novel about a young man who discovers that "Dracula" may be a little too real. The novel has a lot of intriguing ideas and some heavy atmosphere, but Prouty needs a little more seasoning before he writes heavy emotional scenes. They seem a little stiff. 
 As a child, Joseph Barkeley and his brother were rescued from Ceausescu's Romania, and raised in the US by nuns. He has an almost magical knack for "feeling" books' age and composition, which makes him sought-after to authenticate old, rare books. 
 He's hired to authenticate, purchase and deliver the original manuscript and notes for Bram Stoker's Dracula, which includes a long-lost epilogue and ending. The client is anonymous... but he lives in the legendary Bran Castle in Romania. The people around Joseph are worried about him, either because they believe the client is a vampire, or because they don't want him going back to Romania. 
 Well, it's pretty obvious to everyone except Joseph that the client IS none other than the legendary Dracula, and he is searching for something in the original manuscript. Soon Joseph is not only enmeshed in a nightmarish web of vampiric weirdness, but he's also being implicated for multiple murders... where the victims were impaled. 
 "Stoker's Manuscript" has a pretty fascinating concept -- it mixes together real-life horrors in Romania (both recent and ancient) with genuinely creepy vampire mythology. A lot of people have made the "Vlad Tepes = Dracula of the book" connections, but Prouty adds real depth and mystery to it. And he gives the Romanian countryside a sense of eerie, sinister presence, where you can believe in the bizarre being real. 
 However, Prouty isn't quite seasoned enough to make the story fully work. He has an intriguing, richly-detailed style that echoes Stoker's Victorian style, which works well with a modern-day twist on "Dracula." And he sketches out a vampire species that is scarily realistic, complete with biological functions, different sub-breeds and methods of reproduction. It's a little removed from the more mystical approach of "Dracula," but interesting. 
 The problem is that Prouty's writing never really quite handles the intense stuff -- moments and recollections of deeper emotions (such as Joseph having a mini-meltdown) feel stiff and awkward. As a result, Joseph is an interesting protagonist but not really a gripping one. Sadly, the most interesting people -- like the weird vampire-obsessed Romanian lady -- don't get enough time in the spotlight. 
 "Stoker's Manuscript" is a decent novel that could have been a brilliant one. Excellent ideas and a great mix of fact and fiction are dragged down by prose that isn't very comfortable with emotions.