<b>From the back cover of the Roc second printing:</b> "Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks, and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one...
<p>The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny.
<p>But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very <i>souls</i>, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place. It originates from the ocean's depths, plaguing the populace with tides of nightmares and madness.
<p>This evil cannot hide from me. No matter what guise it assumes, I will be waiting for it. With an axe."
