Ivy Morgan and Jack Harker don’t have many complaints. Things are good, life is quiet, and the only big thing on their to-do lists is picking a date for their wedding. Which is exactly what they’re doing when a local celebutante approaches with an offer for Jack to be on a dating show. He turns her down flat and goes on his way, but the next morning, she’s found dead and the list of suspects is endless thanks to the production landing smackdab in the middle of Shadow Lake. 

It’s vacation time for Harper Harlow and her boyfriend Jared Monroe. They have big plans to head to northern Lower Michigan for a wine tasting event – which happens to be close to a small town called Shadow Lake – and they’re even taking Zander and Shawn along for the ride. In Shadow Lake, Ivy Morgan finds herself in a good mood. It’s officially the start of morel season (her favorite holiday) and she knows exactly how she’s going to spend the next three weeks of her life, much to her fiancé Jack Harker’s chagrin. Everything changes when the two groups meet in the woods – the whimsy of morel hunting too much for Harper’s group to turn away from – and they happen to stumble across a body. It seems a local woman, a party enthusiast with a bad reputation, was shot down in the middle of the forest and it appears someone is out there hunting people rather than animals or mushrooms … making for a very dangerous morel season.

Let's get one thing straight - Ivy Wilde is not a heroine. In fact she's probably the last witch in the world you'd call if you needed a magical helping hand, regardless of her actual abilities. If it were down to Ivy, she'd spend all day every day on her sofa, where she could watch TV, munch junk food, and talk to her feline familiar to her heart's content. However, when a bureaucratic disaster ends up with Ivy as the victim of a case of mistaken identity, she's yanked very unwillingly into Arcane Branch.

As a cassandra sangue, or blood prophet, Meg Corbyn can see the future when her skin is cut - a gift that feels more like a curse. Meg's Controller keeps her enslaved so he can have full access to her visions. But when she escapes, the only safe place Meg can hide is at the Lakeside Courtyard - a business district operated by the Others. Shape-shifter Simon Wolfgard is reluctant to hire the stranger who inquires about the Human Liaison job.

Hadley Hunter has lived a normal life, in a normal suburb, with a normal job and a normal father. All that changes when a grandmother she didn’t even know existed dies and leaves her a fabulous lighthouse on Moonstone Bay Island. From the naked woman swimming in the ocean outside her back door to the hot sheriff who seems to be hiding a secret, Hadley is intrigued from the start. That’s before magical things start happening - including to Hadley - and a body washes up on the beach.