A riveting novel about a mother’s all-consuming worry for her child over forty-eight hours at a remote cottage with old friends and a mysterious neighbour

Ruth is the fiercely protective mother of four-year-old Fern. Together they visit a remote family cottage belonging to Stef, the woman who has been Ruth’s best friend—and her husband’s best friend—for years. Stef is everything Ruth is not—confident, loud, carefree—and Ruth cannot seem to escape her. While Fern runs wild with Stef’s older twins and dockside drinks flow freely among the adults, they’re joined by Stef’s neighbour Marvin, a man whose manic pursuit of fun is matched only by his side comments about his absent wife. As day moves into night and darkness settles over the woods that surround the cottages, the edges among this group of people sharpen until a suspected threat takes an unexpected turn.