After a scandal blacklists her in society, eighteen-year-old Maeva Whitney is forced to pack up her things and flee to her family's seldom-used country house until the whispers blow over. Rockwell Manor is crumbling, drafty, and nothing like the beautiful townhouse she left in the city, but the Whitneys are quickly welcomed into country society by the Holloways, a noble family from the creepy estate across town.

Maeva wants to go home. She has no interest in mingling- especially not with Mr. Holloway or his strange daughters- but her parents have other ideas. They've arrived just in time for The Death Days, an eleven-day celebration to honor the thousands of people who died during the great fever epidemic centuries ago. Back in the city, it's an excuse for a new ballgown. In Hollyhurst it's a grand, utterly creepy holiday. This year is the two-hundredth anniversary of The Death Days, so the Holloways have big plans to make this the grandest celebration yet.

And Maeva is about to find out that she's their very special guest.