"I"m not a vampire," insists Jacob Maresbeth, teenage journalist for the school paper. But what is a vampire, really? What happens if you have all the right symptoms, but are a living, breathing sixteen-year-old boy? Diagnosed with a rare disease, Jake can"t help but wonder. After eight years in and out of the Newport News hospital, he"s had it up to here with doctors, diseases and dishonesty. After all, Jake"s father, respected neurologist Franklyn Maresbeth, has been hiding some of his more unusual symptoms for years... particularly that part about drinking blood. In High Stakes, Jake records his summer vacation in the home of his maiden aunt, the bangled and be-spectacled Professor Sylvia. If that isn"t bad enough (and it is), Jake and his theatre-loving sister Lizzy must keep the "unofficial" details of Jake"s disorder a secret from Aunt Sylvia"s seductively beautiful graduate student, Zsofia. Will Jake survive a whole month pretending to be an invalid? Will Zsofia weaken his resolve with her flirtatiously dangerous Hungarian accent? Will Jake lose his heart-in more ways than one?