Bleeding the Books Dry

Gothic Fantasy – Satirical Fiction – Humorous FantasyWhat happens when the most terrifying creature in Victorian England meets the one man who is completely unimpressed by him?Julian Finch is a senior revenue officer for Her Majesty's Inland Revenue. He has faced difficult taxpayers before. He has never, however, audited an immortal vampire.When Finch is dispatched to investigate a suspicious aristocratic estate in Yorkshire, he expects forged documents, concealed assets, and several centuries of unpaid taxes. What he finds instead is an ancient vampire lord sitting atop a fortune in stolen gold, forbidden foreign soil, unregistered servants, and enough undeclared property to bankrupt a small kingdom.But Finch has no interest in holy water, silver stakes, or ancient curses.He has forms.And Dracula is about to discover that the British tax system is far more terrifying than sunlight.As a mysterious shipment of Transylvanian earth reaches the English coast, Finch follows the trail from a wrecked ship at Whitby to Carfax Abbey and deep into the hidden financial empire of Count Dracula. With customs officials, property assessments, stamp duties, quarantine regulations, and compulsory seizure closing in, the Prince of Darkness finds himself trapped in a battle he cannot win with claws, hypnotism, or supernatural power.Because in Victorian England, even the undead must obey the rules.A darkly comic Gothic fantasy and sharp British satire, Bleeding the Books Dry combines vampire fiction, Victorian England, bureaucratic comedy, deadpan humor, and classic Dracula mythology into a gloriously absurd battle between ancient supernatural terror and the cold, unstoppable machinery of government.