Can a house hold evil? Can it hold memories? Nellie Lester fears the worst when she accepts a nursing job in New Harmony, Michigan, an island town where she spent her early life. But she’s desperate to get out of the flu pandemic that hit her Chicago hospital and everywhere else, in the aftermath of the Great War. Perhaps even more compelling is her need to find out who her father was. The only remnant of the man is a photograph that might show Nellie and her parents years ago in New Harmony. Arriving, the nurse finds that Ravenwood Manor and its owner, William Thiery, hold forbidding reputations in the area—the house is haunted, they say, and William is a frightening man who cares little for his wife and the baby that Nellie is there to deliver. Then a body is found with a fatal head wound, and Nellie doesn’t accept that the death was an accident. She’s not there to be a detective, her boss is quick to point out, but the danger is mounting. Nellie must solve mysteries from the past and in the present to save herself and, she hopes, get out of New Harmony. Supernatural elements —scariest is a death portrait of a child in which the subject seems to progressively rot—add to the domestic drama and historical wrongs, creating a gothic suspense and a feisty protagonist to remember.
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