Halsey Rookmaaker is on vacation with her new boyfriend, Lennox, when disaster strikes. Her best friend, Ballard, has not been in contact with her for over a month. He and his family have been getting Rome ready for something called THE GATHERING, an event which has not taken place in a quarter-century. Thirteen magical Initiates have been summoned from all over Europe to attend, including Halsey herself. But she will not be going alone . . . Lia, Ballard's sister, has also been showing signs of the Craft. Now Wiccans and other Supernaturals are flooding into Rome, including the Lenoir, vampires Rome has vowed to defend itself against. Because, while she may not be a Neophyte yet, Halsey has been chosen, for an inheritance it may be her destiny to wield.

On the eve of graduating from her posh New England academy, seventeen-year-old Halsey Rookmaaker receives a disturbing package in the mail, from Rome, Italy. She drops everything--her school, her friends, her future--and sets off, to find the only one who can help her get to the bottom of her past, and to the secrets of what happened to her parents. Kinsey and Maximilian Rookmaaker were two powerful magical beings . . . until somebody killed them. Now Halsey wants to know why. With her is Ballard, an attractive teenage boy with problems of his own. Together, they must decipher an ancient magic text, and prevent an evil necromancer from taking over the world. Life is never easy when you're an unfledged teenage witch. In Volume One of The Diaries, Halsey Rookmaaker must come face to face with her past, and with a dark stranger, who may be out for her blood.