Harriet Brandt defies conventional categories, and does not fit socially although she is carefree and oblivious to her difference. Everyone she cares for seems to fall ill and many die by a mysterious vampiric life-sucking tendency which she inherited from her grandmother's ailment from a vampire bat bite. She gives attention to women who fall ill, and then discovers men. The men who are unlucky enough to be attracted to her suffer the same fate. Is Ms Brandt actually a vampire, or are her friends just unlucky or poor in health? The story sweeps from medical practice in England to a slave-owning plantation in Jamaica to a plush seaside resort in Belgium. You will enjoy the titillations, fears and terror of the well-to-do on holiday as they struggle to come to grips with the tantalising and frightening phenomenon of Harriet Brandt.