Jeremy Marsh, a science journalist and professional skeptic, finds himself in over his head when he arrives at the small town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, and falls head over heels for the granddaughter of the supposed town psychic.

"It's 1951 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Blackburn Gant, his life irrevocably altered by a childhood case of polio, seems condemned to spend his life among the dead as the sole caretaker of a hilltop cemetery. It suits his withdrawn personality, and the inexplicable occurrences that happen from time to time rattle him less than interaction with the living. But when his best and only friend, the kind but impulsive Jacob Hampton, is conscripted to...