Ruth has been a vampire for sixty-five years after being assaulted by a vampire during World War II while her family hid from the Nazis. One night, she is drawn to a house where they are celebrating Hanukkah and the candles are burning in the window. There, she meets a man, Benjamin Fox, who is immune to her vampire charms. Ben is thirty-five years old and dying of a heart problem he's had since he was a child.

Together, they will form a friendship that could be so much more if either could allow it. But when Ben is about to succumb to his illness, Ruth must decide whether to give in to his wishes and make him a vampire too. She is, he's decided, his ultimate Hanukkah gift.