When ghost-stumbler Sherry Landis's quasi-friend Julie-beautiful, aggravating, and now ridiculously rich-buys a moldering Northern California hotel and invites Sherry and her sister Laura for an "elegant house-party weekend" to kick off her glorious restoration project, they just know it's going to be the kind of trouble for which Julie is famous. As soon as they arrive in the secluded canyon surrounding the Garnet Springs Resort, Julie can't help flaunting both her natural and extravagantly purchased charms as well as rekindling her flirtation with Sherry's beau Marc. Weary, wary, and wondering at the wisdom of their road trip, Sherry is further unbalanced by an unexpected wave of hatred . . . from the hotel itself? Once a Jazz-era destination and headquarters for the stars of the 1930s Hollywood classic Fool's Gold, the hotel has old mystery and grandeur in its bones. But madness as well? Trying to discount the psychic rumblings only she feels, Sherry's nerves are shattered by a visitation from a phantom of shadows whose glee in her terror only makes it more bone-chilling. Admitting she'd bought far more than she had bargained for, Julie begs, cries, and finally cajoles Sherry into tackling the most daunting task of her life: tracking down the insane spirit that haunts the hotel's faded halls and empty rooms and banishing it to the heaven-or hell-to which it belongs.