BOOK OF THE WEEK: THE ACCURSED BY JOYCE CAROL OATES

Reactions were varied when rumours hit that Joyce Carol Oates was writing a vampire book. The prolific author – she has published more than 50 novels – is celebrated for her more literary esthetic, which she does bring to this eerie tale. Set in Princeton in the early 1900s, this gothic tale tells the story of a curse on an upper-class family hiding a dark secret. In its pages, the reader meets many historical characters, including Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, Upton Sinclair, Mark Twain and Jack London though, given this is fiction, they are often a bit different than we expect.

(Publisher: Harper Collins)