content: I've read the majority of this series and this one is by far the worst. It's painfully obvious that Laurell K. Hamilton has never played D&D and has little to no idea how Ravenloft has been portrayed by her fellow authors. The first Ravenloft book that I read concerning Harkon Lukas was "Heart of Midnight," which was excellent. In that book, Lukas was suave, sophisticated and subtle in his evil. Here, he's just plain bloodthirty and cruel, not at all how I pictured him after reading HOM. Maybe LKH is a decent author. I don't know, since this is the only novel of hers I've ever read. All I know is that she has no clue how to write for D&D.