On the day her mother died, Daphne Forrest learned the devastating truth. She’d never really known the women who raised her, not even her real name. Fueled to unravel the tragic mystery behind her mother’s secrets, Daphne abandons all she knows, traveling to the bucolic yet sinister town of Willoughby, Minnesota. Navigating through the memories of her own bloody legacy, Daphne throws herself into the insular and haunting small town of her ancestors. She investigates the murder that led to her mother’s shame, with the help of charming, yet tortured, local Edwin Monroe. Edwin has a unique understanding of the darkness in Willoughby, and how the town holds a lurking threat more foreboding than any unsolved murder. As Daphne gets closer to the truth, Willoughby itself rebels against her. She bears witness to terrifying scenes from the past. Is her mother a murderer? Is this Daphne’s dark inheritance? Is she strong enough to battle an evil more frightening than her own past?

Daphne Forrest and Edwin Monroe forget their past shared trauma by building a life in the big city. But the death of Doris Woodhouse pulls them back into the strangely enigmatic town of Willoughby. Surrounded by the familiar gothic landscape and its dark underbelly of secrets, a mystery unfurls, revealing a catalyst set in motion long ago. One that has caused a unique evil to lurk in the hearts of Willoughby's citizens. A shocking truth once confronted by protective mother, Doris Woodhouse, and the dashing Holden Small in the winter of 1961. Daphne and Edwin in the present, and Doris in the past, come to fathom the terrifying reality behind the bucolic edifice of Willoughby. Will Daphne be able to save herself and the town she has grown to love? Or will Willoughby's evil infect her own heart?