The daughter of a diplomat and historian explores books in her father’s library one evening and discovers an ancient book and a bunch of yellowing letters. These letters are those of one of her father’s advisors in graduate school, a man who suddenly disappeared. The center of the book contains a strange dragon drawing. This discovery leads her on a quest to find out more about her father’s past and the fate of a mother she has never known.

The letters involve the evil history of Vlad the Impaler who is the person behind the legend of Dracula. Vlad the Impaler was ruler of what is now part of Romania. In his efforts to retain power and fight off the Turks, whom he hated, his cruelty became legend. Often he impaled his enemies alive on stakes driven through their bodies and lined them up by the hundreds along the roadsides.

Combining reality and the legend of Dracula and vampires, this book’s main character, the daughter of the historian, leads the reader from London to Amsterdam to Istanbul to various parts of Romania and Bulgaria in search of the truth of her father’s past and the supposed death of her mother. Although it is a vampire story (I am not a vampire fan), it is much more; it is a fascinating trek through a part of history few know much about and about which little has been written.

Note: I doubted I would finish it by year’s end because this novel is 642 pages long. However, I found the story and history so compelling that I finished it before Christmas.