A woman haunted by nightmares. Fractured memories of a fateful decision. The echoes of a violent death. A tortured past she can’t escape, and a secret that followed her home.

Torn from the only person she ever loved, Jade has never felt so useless, and so lonely. She has temporarily lost all contact with her soulmate, Ami, who is still back in the desert, on active duty during a dangerous evacuation. But Jade, unexpectedly discharged at the peak of her career, is back home for the first time in decades, hating civilian life and feeling completely lost.

Jade’s only comfort is the quaint old village, its cottages low beamed and crooked, its cobbled streets and winding river paths that hold the happy memories of her childhood. But strange things are happening: The little cemetery nearby, older than living memory, drowns in a strange mist that rises among the willows in the depths of the night, pouring from the tombstones to prowl its territory like a living thing.

Jade is logical and doesn’t believe in superstition, so she’s not afraid to visit her mother’s grave often to share her news: How hard it’s been to start her freelance business and rebuild her life, among unfriendly family and unfamiliar friends. But since her first night back home, disturbing, ghostly static from the old analogue boat radio whispers her name, and Jade can’t shake the feeling she’s being watched. Someone, or something, lurks on the periphery of her every footstep, tied to an enigmatic memory she can’t seem to grasp.

 

If it wasn’t for her twenty something, half sister Leela, who swoops in constantly with banter of cupcakes, cosplay, student parties and hangover cures, Jade would lose her grasp on reality. But her baby sister is an adult now, and she is sensing the secret Jade is keeping from her. From everyone. Jade refuses to get too close to the truth. That darkness in her past, is too frightening to face ever again.

And when a strange figure appears night after night among the trees across the water, Jade knows she is running out of time. Someone is trying to tell her something, and she must do whatever it takes to find who it is, what they want, why they are here.

The answers she seeks carry her in a tangled journey through ancient lore and her own hybris, to the Gates of Death itself. The gothic statues of the cemetery take a life of their own. Angels turn into demons. The shadows of the Thames paths crawl with unfathomable whispers, calling out for justice. Is this all her imagination? Is her mind betraying her? Or is she really witnessing the signs of a primordial power manifesting only for her eyes to see?

Alongside her faithful dog, Cannelloni, Jade must fight to the end to protect those she loves and save her own soul.

For the dead have truths to tell – and their retribution comes as cold as the grave.