At the end of the Civil War, a daughter of the Confederacy made what she thought was an innocent wish: to build a house where nothing bad could happen.
But peace came at a price, and one hundred and seventy years later Shantell and her friends are about to discover where all that darkness ended up. When Shantell’s best friend, Avery, tells her he has inherited a house big enough to make their dreams of a sanctuary come true, she’s too cautious to be optimistic. A lifetime of loss has taught her cynicism, and even though Avery swears the house has never experienced a tragedy, she goes along expecting everything from black mold to evil spirits.
But not only is the house in better shape than they’d expected, it makes them better too: Shantell’s anxiety stops flaring up; terminally shallow Avery is suddenly capable of deeper emotions; and Tobias, Avery’s older brother and the contractor for the job, even quits chain smoking. There’s an eeriness to the calm, and it’s almost a relief when they realize they do not walk alone in Abernathy House. As they dig into the house’s history, Shantell, Avery, and Tobias discover that there’s only one thing worse than a house that’s haunted: a house that desperately wants to be.
