In 1904 Chicago, where secrets cling as thickly as the soot on every windowsill, Jo earns her living by photographing the dead. The work is quiet and cloistered, allowing her to hide from a past that haunts her: the grief over her husband’s mysterious death, a spiraling addiction, and the guilt she carries over the things she’s done to survive.

When a notorious crime family hires Jo to make a final portrait of their daughter Millie, it stirs up a spirit that refuses to rest. In opium-fueled dreams, Millie lures Jo into a realm called “the courtyard,” where the dead burn to tell her their half-finished stories.

As Jo investigates Millie’s murder, she forms a fragile bond with her sister, Grace, who’s desperate for an escape of her own. Amid the whispers of the dead is a truth Jo must confront if she is to free them all from the shadows of the past.

© 2026 by Marina Scott. ℗ 2026 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.