Since walking away from his life as a Vampire Hunter, Victor Drake hoped for a quiet time with his new wife, Jessica. However, when a family tragedy draws them from London to Cornwall, a reunion with his older brother brings back sad memories and recriminations. As the Vampire Hunters Union takes control of the vampire population, a vampire named Vermillion winds up his dealings in the few remaining barrels of blood from the Feast of Dran Val Karlic, and draws the attention of not only the Vampire Hunter Brice Hawk, but also the beautiful and dangerous vampire witch, Lucinda Beaufort. It is then that secrets are revealed and they are all drawn together to face an ancient evil sisterhood known as The Shadowing Coven.

Demokedes was a Greek physician--possibly a specialist in sports' medicine--who lived through the hinge period around 500 BCE.--an era of rapid and radical change from Italy to China. It is in Book Three of the Histories of Herodotus that we learn of the doctor's peregrinations from his home in Italy to Athens, to Ionia, to the very heart of the emerging Persian empire, and finally many years later back to his hometown of Kroton. Along the way he has encounters the major celebrities of that world: sports heroes, playwrights, poets, philosophers, tyrants, and King Darius of Persia. Indeed, after witnessing his employer--Polykrates, the tyrant of Samos--being brutally mutilated and then murdered by a Persian satrap, Demokedes is forced into the service of Darius as court physician. Some years later, Darius assigns Demokedes to lead a contingent of Persians whose assignment it is to survey the coastal regions of Greece in preparation for the eventual attempt by Darius to conquer the Greek lands and add them to his empire. By a clever ruse, Demokedes escapes from his Persian chaperones and returns home--where he immediately marries the daughter of the greatest sports hero of antiquity--Milo of Kroton

Fifteen year old Katie Jenkins has what her grandmother called a "gift" - an ability to see things that others can't. Her grandmother taught her to harness her ability using Tarot cards, but after the old lady's death, Katie begins to realise there is more to it than just predicting the future. She meets a strange girl called Star, who has runaway to escape from an abusive home life, and is being followed at night by an evil shadowy figure called the Dark Man. He wants Star's soul, and Katie knows she must not let that happen, whatever the cost. Not fully understanding how, Katie must protect the physically and emotionally scarred Star from the Dark Man, and also help to bring out into the open the real reason Star left her home, before it is too late.