When seventeen--year--old Celene is returning home after playing basketball with her best friend one crisp October afternoon, she is accosted and subsequently attacked by a mysterious red--eyed man named Cahlin. She wakes hours later to discover that not only are the terrifying legends that surrounded the woods near her home true, but also she has now become a part of them. She has become a vampire. Too frightened for the safety of her family and friends to return home, she instead retreats into the forest to learn about her new self. She discovers more and more about herself, some things she likes and others she doesn't, until at last she can take it no more and she has to return to her parents. After saving them from a group of robbers, however, she discovers that they don't remember her, and she has been wiped from existence in their minds. She returns in agony to the forest but returns again soon enough and discovers that, miraculously, her best friend Janet remembers her and has been equally perplexed by everyone else's lack of memory. Celene begins to recover with the help of her friend, but all too soon, the demon within becomes too strong, and she finds herself hungering for Janet's blood. They are both saved, however, by a mysterious dark-eyed man who claims to know more about Celene than she even knows of herself. Can she trust him? Will she overcome the demon within? And will she ever exact her revenge on the vampire who took everything from her?