After 14-year-old Sam is found dead at the center of a frozen pond, his boarding school does its best to move on. But as winter break begins and only three students and two teachers remain on the remote campus, it becomes clear Sam’s death was only the first move in a dangerous game. Jon Sayers hopes to give the three stay-behind boys a cheerful holiday. But on his first night, he wakes to the sight of a dark figure cutting through the snow of the empty campus. One of the boys? His fellow teacher? Or something else entirely? As one disturbing incident leads to another, fear spreads, and paranoia takes hold. When an ice storm cuts them off, Jon learns the boys have been playing a secret game with enigmatic rituals and rules. With secrets of his own, Jon questions not just those around him, but the darkness within himself.

After a tumultuous youth marked by his inexplicable survival of a devastating tragedy, Nate McHale left his Adirondack hometown of Greystone Lake and never looked back. Fourteen years later, he has become a respected New York City surgeon, devoted husband and loving father. Then a body is discovered deep in the forests that surround Greystone Lake. This disturbing news finally draws Nate home. While navigating a tense landscape of secrets and suspicion, resentments and guilt, Nate reconnects with estranged friends and old enemies, and encounters strangers who seem to know impossible things about him. Haunting every moment is the Lake’s sinister history and the memory of Lucy Bennett, with whom Nate is forever linked by shattering loss and youthful passion.

Ben and Caroline Tierney and their two young boys are hoping to start over. Ben has hit a dead end with his new novel, Caroline has lost her banking job, and eight-year-old Charlie is being bullied at his Manhattan school. When Ben inherits land in the village of Swannhaven, in a remote corner of upstate New York, the Tierneys believe it’s just the break they need, and they leave behind all they know to restore a sprawling estate. But as Ben uncovers Swannhaven’s chilling secrets and Charlie ventures deeper into the surrounding forest, strange things begin to happen. The Tierneys realize that their new home isn’t the fresh start they needed...and that the village’s haunting saga is far from over.