Wallachia is an ongoing serial vampire novel written by David Ely. New chapters come out every few weeks as both text and audiobook via an iOS app.
The app is free to download and read. At the end of each chapter there are buttons that allow the reader to support its writing by leaving an optional tip.
Inside the app, you’ll get:
- Every chapter of Wallachia that’s been released so far;
- New chapters the moment they come out;
- The ability to vote in reader polls that directly influence the story; and
- As a bonus, the complete prelude story, Flowers of Transylvania.
Flowers of Transylvania, is also available separately for Kindle and Apple Books.
The Story
Set decades before Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, Wallachia tells the story of a small village in the Principality of Wallachia, just south of Transylvania, in 1816. The main character, Marley, has just returned home with an injury after attending a dance academy in Transylvania. The town and its people have their own problems and secrets but are unaware of what’s coming down the road, as Count Dracula arrives to pay their local lord a visit.
The Setting
Wallachia (wool-ay-kee-uh) was a principality in Eastern Europe that combined with Moldavia in 1859 to form the modern nation of Romania. Transylvania joined along with several other countries in 1916. The historical figure Vlad III Dracula was Voivode of Wallachia in the 15th century. (More about the connections between the literary character and the historical figure here.)
More than an eBook
Wallachia is intended to feel like a familiar ebook reader, but it includes features that weren’t possible to achieve using regular EPUB files.
- A serialized story. New chapters come out every few weeks—at least twice a month—via push notifications. Readers get the chapters as soon as they’re written and edited.
- Audiobooks included. Every chapter is published both as text and audiobook read by the author. Progress syncs between the two, so one can read part of a chapter and then switch to audio using a Play button at the top of the page.
- Reader polls. At the end of each chapter, readers are invited to vote on a question. The result of each poll is incorporated into future chapters as they’re written. The larger story has been planned out far in advance, but there’s still lots of room for the readership to influence how things turn out.
About David Ely
Last name: “ee-Lee.”
David Ely was born in Charlottesville, VA. He Graduated from the College of William and Mary with a double major in Philosophy and Literary & Cultural Studies: Film Studies. He lives with his wife and two children in Annandale, VA.
Learn more about David’s journey developing the app here.
Trailer
Direct YouTube link: https://youtu.be/UHF4o-0clUo
Icon and Screenshots
(Right-click to download full-sized images.)
Design Features
The Wallachia app aims to be the best-looking ebook reader available. Most ebooks simply take the book’s text and present it without any particular formatting. A great deal of care has been put into Wallachia’s text layout system to enhance the reading experience in subtle ways.
Chapters open with a beautiful drop cap. When space allows, it tucks itself into the surrounding lines, its baseline matching that of the surrounding text, with its cap height aligning to the median of the first line of text.
If a paragraph starts with punctuation, the quotations marks hang slightly to the left of the letter so that it aligns with other paragraphs. On narrower screens, the width of the left margin exactly matches the indentation and line height. On larger screens, the text block never grows so wide that the eye would have to scan too far.
The typeface, Baskerville, was chosen both because it looks good on iOS’s high resolution displays and because it’s historically accurate to the era. First cut in the 1750s, it feels right at home in Wallachia’s 1816 setting.
Wallachia’s cover was painted by Samantha Lane Fiddy. Learn more about how the app icon was created from the cover.
Availability
The app is on the App Store now and is available worldwide.
The prelude story, Flowers of Transylvania, is also available for Kindle and Apple Books.
Contact
Please reach out on Twitter @wallachiaNet or email for any media or review inquiries.