Books

Sixteen-year-old Leontyne Skye longs to escape Good Hope, the remote Georgia barrier island where memory, myth, and inheritance bind the living to the dead. Her heritage is a burden she cannot outrun. Tasked with tending Damascus — an ancient fig tree whose wind chime song beguiles haints across the river — Leontyne watches as her mother, Eulalee, disintegrates into tufts of hair, teeth, and memory, a fate that has claimed generations of Skye women.

This affliction is the cost of distilling Redemption, an addictive elixir made from the figs of Damascus and infused with the essence of the restless dead. As Leontyne begins to unravel — her memories fractured and her hand lost in a life-altering accident during an event known as Tribulation Day — she pieces together her past through the unreliable recollections of the Longwood twins, her closest companions and fiercest manipulators.

In the aftermath of Eulalee’s death, the twins pressure Leontyne to continue the family legacy upon which Good Hope depends. But when a handsome stranger arrives, loyalties fracture and desires ignite, threatening to derail Leontyne’s plans to flee the island and claim a life beyond its haunted shores.

Each moment she refuses Damascus, the haints gather in menacing hordes. As her memories return, everything she believes to be true — including the devastating events of Tribulation Day — comes into question. Leontyne soon realizes her birthright extends far beyond the making of Redemption, and that accepting her destiny as the Great Redeemer may cost her everything. Her refusal threatens to shatter the fragile balance between the living and the dead.