Returning from college for his father's funeral, Edward Marshwillow faces challenges and adversities from many directions. The love of his life has left him for his best friend Tim. His girlfriend from college will visit him soon. Meanwhile Gala, Edward's beautiful, vulnerable teenage sister, has been caught up in a web of occult events that are besieging the town of Windridge . . . Since childhood, Edward has felt a metaphysical affinity with Windridge Ravine, and now even that is jeopardized by a throbbing cosmic wound. In the background, a shadowy figure exercises his growing psychic powers, stealing the life force of his teenage victims and moving ever closer to the Great Advance that will grant him unlimited control over the human race. "An expansive, ambitious debut, Verdure is an adventure of the mind that culminates in a phantasmagorical battle to the death."