In the savage, unforgiving mountains of late 18th-century Ottoman Albania, a boy's world is shattered by his father's murder. Fuelled by an oath of vengeance and guided by his formidable mother, Khamko, young Ali of Tepelena embarks on a relentless ascent from hunted outlaw to master kleft, his cunning as sharp as his yataghan. The Stolen Mountains become his crucible, forging a leader whose ambition will shake the foundations of an empire.

As Ali Pasha, the "Lion of Ioannina," he carves out a vast, virtually independent kingdom across Epirus and Thessaly. His Saray glitters with plundered wealth, his armies, bound by the sacred Skipetar's oath, are the most feared in the Balkans. He outmaneuvers treacherous Ottoman viziers in Constantinople, tames wild bandit chieftains like Kara Kol and Gavril Vlachos with chilling brutality, and engages in a deadly game of diplomacy with Napoleon's France and Great Britain, charming poets like Lord Byron even as he plots his next conquest. His reign is a paradox: a patron of arts and learning, yet a tyrant whose justice is swift and terrible, whose enemies, like the heroic Souliotes or the tragic Kyra Frosini, pay an unimaginable price for defiance.

But the young, reformist Sultan Mahmud II in Constantinople is determined to crush all overmighty vassals. As Ali's power reaches its zenith, his tyranny unchecked, he makes a fatal miscalculation – an audacious assassination attempt in the Sultan's own capital. Now declared an outlaw, the full might of the Ottoman Empire, led by the formidable Khurshid Ahmed Pasha, descends upon Ioannina. Betrayed by allies, even his own sons, Ali makes his final, desperate stand.

"Lord of the Stolen Mountains" is an epic saga of ambition, power, vengeance, and betrayal, painting a vivid portrait of a complex historical figure and the turbulent era he dominated. Ali Pasha's rise was legendary, his reign a storm of contrasts, and his downfall a stark reminder that even the most powerful lions can be brought to bay. But his legacy, intertwined with the birth of modern Greece, would echo through the mountains long after his roar was silenced.