Jubilation County, Georgia, Ten Years Ago:

Chase Emrick was fourteen when her mother married Crow Tillman. Maybe it was his creepy name, or his sinister good looks; maybe it was the glass eye with the bolt of lightning for a pupil that he kept covered with a black eye patch, or maybe it was the rattlesnake tattoo that curled around his left wrist onto his hand, but for some reason, Chase never trusted Crow. Then one terrifying night of horror proved what Chase had felt all along . . .

New Haven, Connecticut, Present Day:

Crow Tillman is ten years dead, but he hasn't stopped haunting Chase Emrick. Everyone she's ever been close to suffers horrible fates, leaving Chase all alone in this world. Haunted by Crow, she has spent the last ten years of her life proving mathematically that a dimension lies unseen in our reality—one where the dead can inflict their will on the living: a netherworld of horror where Crow Tillman is in complete control.
Adam Cameron is a campus cop, and he's utterly smitten by Chase's frailty, beauty, and genius. But getting close to Chase drags Adam into a world he didn't bargain for and head to head with the essence of evil and the reality of death. There is only one way to get Crow Tillman to leave Chase alone: To battle him, you must first die.