When Elise Friedman's mother died suddenly on Elise's eighth birthday, any hope of unlocking her mysterious past died with her. Raised by her adoptive father, Elise has spent years trying to learn the truth about her mother, Catrina, and the life Catrina left behind when she emigrated to America. Now a young woman in college, Elise travels to her mother's homeland of Germany to unearth the truth. Accompanied by her mother's close friend, Addison, and a cocky young globe-trotter she meets in Berlin, Elise is finally getting close to the truth—and to the same evil that once ensnared her mother.