The high school Physical Education teacher may be suspect because of his relationship with the dead girl. Aderyn goes into the forest to forage, but is mindful of her father's warnings that dangerous things rove in the trees after nightfall, including the "bone houses": or, the animated dead. They only stay in the forest and they only come after dark, but lately, Aderyn has been noticing that they have been venturing closer and closer to the edges--until one day, they're out. Mark Bradley is having a tough time. He and his wife, Hillary, moved to an idyllic island in rural Door County, northern Wisconsin, from a Chicago suburb to live on their salaries as teachers and raise a happy family. Mark, however, was accused of sexual harassment when the mother of shy teenaged student, Tresa, read the torrid accounts of an inappropriate affair in Tresa's diary. Tresa insisted her writings were all fantasy, but Mark was fired anyway and has been out of a job for a year. His wife, Hillary is still a dance coach at the high school, but her reception by the locals has become increasingly chilly. The remotely situated North Meols was just not an attractive place to reside for a man of the cloth at this time; no matter how conscientious they were, simply living in the most pleasant area under his “sending” (control).

This was one of those books that sounded good when I saw it all over various bookish social media platforms, but I hadn’t really prioritized reading it. Boy howdy, am I glad I decided to give it a shot, because, while it did have some small rough spots, as a whole it was an enjoyable read with a small dash of spookiness. Surprisingly elegant and atmospheric, but definitely rough around the edges. Zombies meets ancient Wales meets myth meets....traditional YA trappings.Come on, let's go," he told Glory. "I don't want you on the beach alone. It's not safe. You've been drinking." Ryn is a gravedigger, and the tough-as-nails, chip-on-her-shoulder YA heroine that we've seen before. Her father was lost to the mountains, her uncle was lost to the wilderness, and her siblings are all she has left. The family scrapes it by on the edges of poverty in a very medieval-feeling way. I fell in love with both Ryn and Ellis, but really it was Ryn's family goat who stole the show. We stan an animal companion element in any Dark Fantasy story, but it was particularly well done here. That wasn't how it was supposed to be. They'd left Chicago for rural Door County because they had wanted a quieter life in a place where they could join a community and raise a family. Instead, it had become a nightmare for Mark. Suspicion now followed him everywhere. He was marked with a scarlet letter. P for Predator. All because of Tresa Fischer.

I’ll even forgive the little bit of romance this story had, because (a) there wasn’t much, so it didn’t overwhelm the plot, and (b) it was mostly about learning to trust someone and care about someone even when you’ve had so much taken away from you, and I kind of liked that angle.

Around this same time, a mysterious young man, a mapmaker by trade, has come to the village. Could the two things possibly be connected? Sheriff Reich - it's obvious the sheriff from Glory's small town of Door County is hiding secrets, but is he involved in her death?