Josephine Whitefern knows how cruel pretty places can be.

After a brutal assault shatters what little safety she had, her mother drags her to Church Hill, a town only the desperate can stumble into, and few are able to escape.

Strangers whisper her name. The mountains hum with recognition. And for the first time in her grief-hollowed life, the ache in her chest finally settles. She wants to stay in this beautiful, odd little town with its ghost stories and the best hot apple cider in the world. Even when her heart aches for the boy and the motorcycle she left behind. Even when mysterious lights float outside her window at night.

And she will stay, because Church Hill needs her.

The town requires a Lantern Keeper: someone to stand at the edge of darkness and hold the light against what hungers in the forest. For hundreds of years, her ancestors have stood proud to fulfill their destinies. The Council have arranged her marriage, planned her life, mapped her death, all to bind her to this cursed place forever.

But when Josephine discovers the town played a part in her father's death, everything Church Hill promised her curdles. The curse that's held this town for hundreds of years runs deeper than she imagined, its roots tangled in blood and sacrifice. And the only way to break it might be to let the darkness in.

A dark Appalachian romance where the monsters might just be the real heroes, curses run in your blood, and sometimes the only way to break free is to burn it all down.