Books in the The Danilov Quintet series in order

On 12th June 1812, Napoleon's Grande Armee forded the River Niemen and crossed the Rubicon - its invasion of Russia had begun. As rumours of a plague travelling west from the Black Sea reach the Russians, the Oprichniki - twelve in number - arrive.

God would deliver him - would deliver Russia - and he would make Russia into the country that the Almighty wanted it to be. The French have been defeated, as have the twelve monstrous creatures he once fought alongside - and then against - all those years before.

But in Moscow there is one who needs only to sit and wait - wait for the death of an aging tsar, and for the curse upon his blood to be passed to a new generation. As their country grows weaker, a man and a woman - unaware of the hidden ties that bind them - must come to terms with their shared legacy.

Osokin began to pray, not that he would live but that he would truly die . Neither has he felt the sun on his face for more than fifty . Not to release him, but to return him to St Petersburg - to deliver him into the hands of an old, old enemy who would visit damnation upon the ruling family of Russia: the great vampire Zmyeevich.

Russia - 1917. Zmyeevich, king of all vampires, is dead. History records that the great voordalak - known across Europe as Dracula - perished in 1893 beneath the ramparts of his own castle, deep in the mountains of Wallachia. In Russia, the Romanov tsars are free of the curse that has plagued their blood for two centuries.