*** Winner of the British Fantasy Awards Best Horror Novel 2025 *** If the dead can wake and
walk among us how can we know what is truly real? Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she
can see. Ruth-strange corpse-like and dead for centuries-is the light of Roos' life. That is
until the wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop visits one of Roos' backroom seances and the two
strike up a connection. Soon Roos is whisked away to the crumbling estate Agnes inherited upon
the death of her husband where an ill woman haunts the halls strange smells drift through the
air at night and mysterious stone statues reside in the family chapel. Something dreadful
festers in the manor but still the attraction between Roos and Agnes is undeniable. Then
someone is murdered. Poor alone and with a history of 'hysterics' Roos is the obvious
culprit. With her sanity and innocence in question she'll have to prove who-or what-is at
fault or lose everything she holds dear.
