Just a taste of this character and female-driven Southen Gothic ghost story and moody mystery.

Who is Fran Boden? And why is she in that boat every day, alone, looking for her mother? Where exactly IS her mother?

There's a man in Fran's house. There's a woman calling Fran's phone. And there's a strange winged thing in Fran's living room. All she wants to do is sleep, but her missing mother has other ideas.

Fran remembers her mother...and her father...and the first day she realized she wasn't like anyone else.

Fran Boden, with her dog Surly in tow, returns to Oka, Mississippi and, before she can visit the site of the remains, she must reunite with her ornery Aunt Matilda and her non-verbal cousin Gabe. And contend with a new non-human visitor, not to mention a flood of memories that try to drown her.

Fran's memory of the day her mother disappeared in 1991 returns with a vengeance.

Fran, Surly, and Matilda drive to the Pearl River, to the "site." Fran feels oddly powerful, then oddly numb, then oddly confused. And in the middle of it, she meets the new Black female sheriff. And wonders if she's made a new problem or a new friend. She is consumed by visions.

Fran relives the night she came home to find her mother gone and the entire county's worth of cops on her front porch, along with her father, coming apart at the seams. Why wouldn't they let her inside the house? And where was John?