First published 2002
Nemo Raglan thought he had left Burnley Island behind forever. Then his father dies in a savage killing that brings Nemo back to the New England island and the old farmhouse called Hawthorn. This was no ordinary murder. Something far worse than human violence killed his father, something Nemo and his siblings Bruno and Brooke have known since they were children playing the Dark Game. Now Brooke sees faces at windows and roams the night searching for monsters. Bruno tears apart Hawthorn room by room, his memory blocking out some terrible childhood event. The island holds buried secrets, and Hawthorn's walls hide forbidden knowledge. As Nemo digs into his past, he must face the truth about one horrific night from his childhood and confront the evil that stalks his family.
Genres: suspense, mystery, horror, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: dark-secrets, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Burnley Island, Hawthorn
Period: childhood
370 pages · Hardcover · Dorchester Pub Co Inc
Content warnings: violence