Looking to shake up his listless life, Clay thinks he’s struck gold when he accepts a winter dog-sitting job on the remote vacation haven of Mackinac Island. In a single season, he’ll live rent-free while chipping away at mounting debt, finally complete his perpetually unfinished novel, and maybe rekindle a summer spark with Olivia, one of the island’s locals. Instead, the ferries stop running, the tourists vanish, and none of the locals, least of all Olivia, seem to want him there.
Clay retreats to the isolated bluff-top manor, where his presence seems to wake something in a house long used to silent winter slumber. Unsettling sights, sounds, and even smells torment him daily until a mysterious woman in red slips into his bed at night, offering comfort and promising protection from the dark spirit locals call the Black Missionary. Fear and frustration pull Clay deeper into the lustful embrace of his protective female presence, and he slowly becomes wholly dependent - even obsessed - with her as he tries to survive the winter.
Dead Season: A Winter on Mackinac Island blends haunted-house dread with erotic, psychological, folk, and occult horror.
Content notes: Mature themes; sexual content; menace; some on-page violence.
