The horrors that we all know from Flowers in the Attichave become the stuff of local legend in Charlottesville, VA. Many are the tales told of Foxworth Hall, which has lain dormant for years, ever since it burned to the ground supposedly at the hands of Corrine, the high-strung mother of four children who were said to have been incarcerated in the attic of the mansion, the youngest boy deliberately poisoned with arsenic. Who killed him and where his body was buried remains a mystery.

Kristin Masterwood is the sixteen-year-old daughter of a local construction magnate who is evaluating Foxworth for a potential buyer. On their visit to the estate, she finds a very peculiar diary, one belonging to the oldest boy trapped in the Foxworth attic: Christopher. Michael Masterwood is anxious about the effect the young man's diary will have on his daughter, though he equally does not want to make it more compelling to her by forbidding it altogether. Not that it matters anyway. From the moment she starts reading about the events of Flowersthrough Christopher's eyes, she is hooked...