Financial straits and a desire for a fresh start take recently widowed
Meg Rosenthal and her aloof teenage daughter, Sally, to Arcadia Falls, a
tucked-away hamlet in upstate New York where Meg has accepted a teaching
position at a boarding school. The creaky, neglected cottage they'll be
calling home feels like an ill omen, but Meg is determined to make the
best of it. Then a shocking crisis strikes: During Arcadia's First Night
bonfire, one of Meg's folklore students plunges to her death in a campus
gorge. Sheriff Callum Reade finds the presumed accident suspicious, but
then, he is a man with a dark past himself. Meg is unnerved by Reade's
interest in the girl's death, and as long-buried secrets emerge, she
must face down her own demons and the danger threatening to envelop
Sally. As the past clings tight to the present, the shadows, as if in a
terrifying fairy tale, grow longer and deadlier.