Cricket is trapped.
When she was wed, her dreaded mother-in-law laid a blood curse on her, and now that her husband is dead, fully intends to commit her to an asylum ... or worse.
To save her life, Cricket flees to a small New England town and throws herself upon the mercy of a man she has never met.
Gabriel Throckmorton is not happy when Cricket turns up on his doorstep, but he does grudgingly agree to help her break the curse. Cricket expects the process to be difficult, but she has no idea how many secrets are waiting for her in the forest just beyond the garden wall.
There is a ghostly woman who visits Cricket in her dreams. Whether to seduce her or to ask for help, Cricket isn't sure. Then there is Throckmorton himself with a garden full of poisonous plants and a predator's smile. The two of them awaken desires in Cricket that she has never experienced and threaten to reveal secrets she has long kept hidden.
When she discovers bones in the forest, a strange hole in the ground that exudes a frightening power, and townspeople driven to terrible violence by deep and wild magic, she begins to think she might be in over her head.