Book 1 in the Bloodline of Yule Trilogy Winner, 2016 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel Nominee, 2017 Anthony Award for Best Children's/YA Novel Charity Jones is a 16-year-old engineering genius who’s much-bullied for being biracial and a skeptic at her conservative school in Oak County, California. Everything changes when Charity’s social worker mother brings home a sweet teen runaway named Aidan to foster for the holidays. Matched in every way, Charity and Aidan quickly fall in love. But it seems he’s not the only new arrival: Charity soon finds the brutally slain corpse of her worst bully and she gets hard, haunting evidence that the killer is stalking Oak County. As she and her Skeptics Club investigate this death and others, they find at every turn the mystery only grows darker and more deadly. One thing’s for certain: there’s a bloody battle coming this holiday season that will change their lives – and human history – forever. Will they be ready?

In this thrilling conclusion, Charity and her friends must help Aidan defend the fortress against a militia led by Aidan’s “disenfranchised” human half-siblings who want only one the power of the Klaas. Everything is on the line as Charity must venture into a terrifying world called The Withering to find someone named "Perchta," their last hope for help. But will Charity survive the strange creatures and even more shocking truth that await her?