From New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong comes a nail-biting supernatural horror about a haunted lakeside cottage and twisted family secrets.
When twenty-six-year-old Samantha Paynes grandfather dies, she figures she wont even get a mention in the will. After all, she hasnt seen him in eighteen years, not since her father took his own life after being accused of murdering a child at their lakefront cottage. Her grandfather always insisted her father was innocent, despite Sam having caught him burying the childs body, his clothing streaked with blood.
But when she does attend the reading of the will at the behest of her Aunt Nina, she discovers that her grandfather left her the very valuable tract of lakefront property where the family cottage sits. Theres one catch. Sam needs to stay in that cottage for a week. For her own good, really. To finally face the fact she was wrong and her father was innocent.
Travelling to Paynes Hollow, where the cabin hugs the shore of Lake Ontario, Sam is faced with the realities of her childhood and the secrets kept hidden in the shadows of her memories. When her aunt goes missing a couple days into their stay, Sam begins to question everything again. Plagued by nightmares and paranoia, she begins seeing things crawling from the water and flitting through the forest, whispering to her, trying to draw her out of the cottage. Things that look suspiciously human-like. Outside the cottage, the rippling waves of the lake seem to call out to her, the promise of something even darker lurking just below their surface.
