Three years after Lord Byron dismissed him from his service, Dr John Polidori has fallen on hard times. And then a young woman mistakes the doctor for the poet.

As the pair fall in love, Polidori knows that he can only emerge from Byron's shadow if he confesses his true identity to the deluded girl; but was it only Byron's shadow that led her to love him in the first place? And a ghost story, The Vampyre, is published under Byron's name, but will the truth of the matter be uncovered?