Thomas Grant has long struggled with strange abilities he doesn’t understand, including telekinesis and psychic dreams that seem akin to astral projection. When he joins his girlfriend, Allie Everett, and her parents, Brenda and Joe, on a trip to their hometown of Maple, New York, he finds that all the locals there have an unsettlingly friendly demeanor that sets him on edge. Then, one night, Thomas witnesses a mob stab Jacob, the only other apparently “normal” person in town, other than Allie—and the assailants are led by Brenda and Joe. When Thomas reports the incident to the police, Jacob suddenly appears again, as if nothing happened, but with an eerie new personality: “The best thing about the Jacob whom Thomas had known was his difference from everyone else in Maple. That Jacob didn’t have their sameness or their unnerving interest in him. But this Jacob did.” In search of answers, Thomas uncovers a horrifying plan involving blood magic, ogres—and, as it turns out, himself. It’s up to him, and a few unlikely allies, to stop the violence. Tippett has crafted a classically twisty tale, using efficient, straightforward prose that occasionally employs some distracting editorial choices (“It was seven fifty-seven, and the sun was starting to set”). Nevertheless, plenty of genuine shocks await readers; what begins as a psychological thriller quickly transforms into a full-on horror novel, à la Stephen King’s work. As such, readers should expect quite a bit of gore—at one point, a creature crushes a character’s head “like an overripe grape”—and an ending that’s astonishingly violent. The result is an entertaining foray into the supernatural that will have many readers guessing until they reach the conclusion.