The modest lakeside resort in the small town of Blissful Point, Massachusetts, once offered an alternative to the crowded beaches of Cape Cod. Tourists rented cabins, swam, relaxed, and enjoyed the miles of surrounding forest in a peaceful and safe environment. Katherine lived there for years with her husband, James, a poet, and their cat, Barney. They ran the small resort during the hectic spring and summer months, then hunkered down and endured the often brutal and desolate winters in relative isolation. Their lives were uncomplicated, happy, and quiet–or so Katherine thought–until one summer morning when the dead body of a young boy is found floating in the lake. From the moment the child accidentally drowns, Katherine watches as her husband slowly begins to lose his grip on reality, spiraling down helplessly into insanity. And then he’s gone, vanished from their home without a trace. The authorities drag the lake and search parties comb the woods, but to no avail. James is gone.
Months later, as a blizzard descends over Blissful Point, Katherine, alone at the resort, faces her final winter on the lake. But things are no longer what they seem. Perhaps they never were. Are there others out there, in the woods, in the snow, in the lake, waiting and watching and luring her toward the same madness that claimed James? Is there a lingering and primordial evil haunting the lake, bringing with it the truth behind its existence, the answer to the mystery surrounding her husband’s disappearance, and the life she thought she knew, or is her own grip on reality beginning to loosen?
