Prep school teacher, Michael Feraru, tired of his life, tired of his job, tired of dreary England. And, though he doesn't know it yet, tired of his fiancee and her safe, undemanding love. When Michael takes a sabbatical and travels to Romania, he finds he is a titled lord and, more, the owner of an ancient stronghold in the Transylvanian Alps.
At Castel Vliacu, Michael becomes Count Mihai Vlahuta . . and discovers an evil far worse than mere vampires. And far, far more seductive.
The evil beings in The Lost are not vampires, but strigoï--free-floating shades of an ancient family of lords. They die and yet don't decay. Their appetites are even more unspeakable than bloodsucking.
As Gahan Wilson writes in Realms of Fantasy, "If you enjoy this sort of thing at all, you will have a fine, frightening time as Aycliffe hints at and then delivers nasty surprises, ghastly revelations, and increasingly appalling villainies."