Summoned by her aunt and uncle to help with her recently orphaned cousin, nineteen-year-old Merritt Hall arrives in Mobile, Alabama, at the end of summer in 1897. Straight-laced Merritt and fifteen-year-old Winifred clash with most of what's important to the elder cousin-decorum, responsibility, and education. To make Merritt's dire situation more complex, Winifred believes her dreams are haunted.

Sean Spunner, an ardent young neighbor, is all too willing to help protect Winifred from evil spirits and the deadly infection sweeping the city, but what if he poses the biggest threat during their isolation?

Set against the backdrop of the final yellow fever epidemic in Mobile, the first novel in The Malevolent Trilogy is a fresh Southern Gothic family saga by the author of The Possession Chronicles.