Witch and Yale historian Diana Bishop discovers an enchanted manuscript, attracting the attention of 1,500 year old vampire Matthew Claimont. The orphaned daughter of two powerful witches, Bishop prefers intellect, but relies on magic when her discovery of a palimpsest documenting the origin of supernatural species, releases an assortment of undead who threaten, stalk, and haress her.

"After traveling through time in Shadow of Night, the second book in Deborah Harkness's enchanting series, historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont return to the present to face new crises and old enemies. At Matthew's ancestral home at Sept-Tours, they reunite with the cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches--with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when...

Having escaped to hide in Elizabethan London, Matthew and Diana must find a powerful witch teacher to help Diana control her magic and search for the elusive Book of Life. Enemies are everywhere, the threat to witches is growing, and Diana and Matthew's romance faces a barrage of new threats, from within as much as without.