Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters addressed ominously to 'My dear and unfortunate successor'. Her discovery plunges her into a world she never dreamed of - a labyrinth where the secrets of her family's past connect to an inconceivable evil: the dark fifteenth-century reign of Vlad the Impaler and a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive through the ages. The search for the truth becomes an adventure of monumental proportions, taking us from monasteries and dusty libraries, from academic institutions in the USA and Oxford, to the Carpathian Mountains and the capitals of Eastern Europe and beyond. A novel which blends details of the often brutal history of the region, archaic vampire lore, the splendours of the Ottoman Empire and the the beauty of the Romanian countryside.
