I wish to thank NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for this ARC in return for an honest review. This gritty story is set in a small town in decline, located in Vermont and surrounded by forests. It is wintertime, and the author does a wonderful job with elegant descriptions of the forests and the hard, cold winter weather. I am not anti-smoking, but I found the constant references to people smoking, the odour of cigarette smoke and piles of cigarette butts to be constant and repetitive and added little to the plot or character development.

I thought the story was well written, but moved lethargically, as did the characterizations. Later I felt I knew the people well. The suspense was built up at a slow pace, as seemed fitting within the setting.

Ruth has lived in semi-seclusion with her husband, Elam, and her ailing mother since the tragic death of their son, Matthew. She has been shunned by her friend Della and many of the townspeople since the violent deaths of Matthew and Della’s son three years earlier. The two boys were found dead in their tent in the woods while on a camping trip. Rumours blamed Matthew, but what really happened is too dark and disturbing to contemplate.

Ruth’s home had been a place of refuge for troubled children. Child Welfare had frequently sent children there for loving care and pottery lessons. She also rescued abused dogs. Now her time is taken up worrying about her elderly mother, grieving her son, and her silent, moody husband who is in the depths of despair following Matthew’s death.

Now, Ruth’s and Della’s husbands have both vanished. They had last been seen together at a local tavern, and witnesses found this surprising as it was well known that they had never liked each other. This is more than Ruth can bear, and in searching for Elam she begins to uncover terrible secrets hidden in the small town.

Milk Raymond has just returned from Iraq with some fearsome memories which disturb his sleep. He is a stranger with his 9-year-old son, Daniel, who had been deserted by his unstable mother. He wants to be a good father but has a lot of self-doubts. He is unable to find work, and it is suggested that the boy be left in Ruth’s care while he seeks employment. When Daniel’s mother returns and snatches the boy away he finds his problems partly coincide with Ruth’s. This brings the story to a shattering conclusion with revelations about evil infesting the town, but with much hope in the aftermath.

For the last three years, Ruth has lived on the outskirts of “polite society” after her son was blamed for the deaths of three boys, whose fathers have now, also, mysteriously gone missing. Ruth buried herself in her home life, caring for her mother and other children, but now the loss of her husband is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. She’s at serious risk of going down for the third time when she meets Milk Raymond, a man who came home from war to find his stepson alone, after his mother walked out on him. Milk and Ruth, two lost souls struggling to find answers turn to each other for help, but what they uncover is worse than they could have ever imagined. I will never look at Vermont the same way after reading this creepy book!