In 1938, 17-year-old explorer and occult aficionado Theodora Fox goes on the hunt for an ancient relic and her missing father.Theo's father, Richard, is a wealthy American antiquities collector and adventurer, but when it comes to fathering Theo, he falls short, perhaps consumed by grief since the death of Theo's Romanian mother, archaeologist Elena Vaduva. But when he leaves her high and dry in Istanbul, Theo suspects trouble. When her former best friend and "more-than-a-friend" Huxley "Huck" Gallagher, whose warm hazel eyes and sexy Northern Irish accent conjure up plenty of memories, shows up in her hotel room after breaking her heart more than a year ago, she's shocked. Huck, a jack of many trades, has been traveling with Richard and claims he went missing while searching for a powerful ring of bone rumored to have belonged to Vlad epe, aka Vlad the Impaler. Pursued by shadowy figures and armed with Richard's journal, Huck and Theo venture deep into Romania in search of her father and the ring before it falls into the wrong hands. Theo and Huck's witty banter and scorching chemistry are delights, and the independent Theo sparkles with verve and feminist flair. Bennett's breathless cat-and-mouse tale brings a Europe teeming with magic and verdant history to vivid life. Main characters are white.A captivating caper. (map) (Paranormal historical adventure. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Richard Fox is an adventurer and explorer whose 18-year-old daughter, Theodora, would like nothing more than to travel with him but he insists on leaving her behind. As Theodora wastes away in Istanbul, the last person she ever expects to see appears: Huck, her father's former protégé, exiled when he and Theodora were caught in a compromising position. He brings news that Theodora's father has vanished on a quest to find the missing ring of Vlad the Impaler, and it's up to Theodora and Huck to journey across Romania to find him, ignoring their feelings for each other along the way. But as they venture deeper into the Carpathians, the legends surrounding Vlad's ring Dracula's ring grow murkier: there's true dark magic here, and people willing to go to extreme lengths for what they want. Bennett (Serious Moonlight, 2019) sidesteps out of contemporary romance (though this has plenty of steam) and into a richly drawn historical fantasy. Those intrigued by the Dracula name-drop will find this to be fairly vampire-light but a swashbuckling adventure nonetheless.--Maggie Reagan Copyright 2010 Booklist