This is the story of a normal, average 15 year old girl. Or so she thought...

Every family has its secrets. Unfortunately for Harlequin Jones, everyone knew her family's nasty little secret. For eight years, Harlequin and her mother had tried to forget the truth and bury the horrors of their past, but when Harlequin's grandmother begs for her to come and stay, the truth refuses to stay dead. Returning to the home of her grandparents brings back many happy childhood memories for the thirteen-year old Harlequin; memories of home-made apple pie, playing pretend-horses in the yard and fishing down at Bitter Creek. But the visit brings back something else, something Harlequin thought had ended eight years before and she is about to learn that her family's nasty little secret is far worse than she could ever have imagined. Blood is thicker than water and family is everything. There's no place like home.......

Clara’s summer plans of getting her driver’s license and lounging by the pool are instantly shattered when her mother and father are offered the opportunity to study a rare butterfly in the Amazon Rainforest. When Clara and her younger brother Liam are unceremoniously dropped off at their grandparent’s technology-free farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, things quickly go from bad to worse. In addition to coming down with a terrible case of the flu, Clara begins to hear strange unexplained sounds at night, she is locked into her bedroom every night, and her brother is given strict rules about where he can explore on his grandparent’s expansive property. Clara’s concern turns to pure terror when she and Liam find their grandfather reading the morning paper at the dining room table, covered in blood with a long kitchen knife in one hand. Petrified, Clara and Liam burst past their grandfather and race into the forbidden woods surrounding the farmhouse. Are things as they appear? Is their grandfather a murderer? Will Clara and Liam find their way to safety?