First published 2026
Ashley and Malcolm arrive in Boone's Ferry, Vermont, carrying keys to property they never knew existed. Their late grandmother refused to speak of this place, and now they understand why. The townspeople watch them with suspicious eyes and leave mysterious offerings four times each year to appease an angry spirit. Nearly a century earlier, Frankie O'Massey stood as an outsider in this same isolated community. Her uncle Dr. Thomas Endicott taught her medical science while neighbors whispered about supernatural forces. When sickness swept through Boone's Ferry in 1919, fingers pointed at the town's knackerman, a solitary man who gathered dead livestock for salvage. Frankie and her uncle searched for rational answers as fear consumed their neighbors. Now Ashley and Malcolm must piece together what really happened during that plague year. The truth about their mother's death lies buried in Boone's Ferry's past, hidden beneath layers of superstition and small town silence.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, mystery, horror
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, eerie, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: dual-timeline, family-secrets, inherited-mystery, unreliable-community
Setting: Boone's Ferry, Vermont
Period: 1919, 20th-century, 21st-century
383 pages · Hardcover · Gallery Books
Content warnings: death