On a trip to Waterdeep to drink the blood of patients of a mental hospital there, Jander falls in love with an inmate who introduces herself as Anna.

They fail, though the severe damage they inflict on him forces him into an extended healing cycle thereby limiting the speed with which he increased in power as a spell-caster.

He compared the novel to both Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire, stating, "it’s a simpler, more basic version of both classics, of course, but I absolutely do not hold that against the book".

He wrote that "Mists isn’t scary, per se, but Strahd wreaks enough horror and carnage to drive home that Ravenloft is much, much more sinister than the Forgotten Realms.

Strahd is exclusively interested in creating a coven of sexy vampire ladies, which means a lot of female characters exist solely to be victims.