 The novel was shortlisted for the Locus Fantasy Award in 2007 as well as the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature in the same year.The action mostly takes place in Southern California, in a few days during August 1987.Frank Marrity (a widower) and his loving twelve-year-old daughter, Daphne, are drawn into a dangerous occult world when his grandmother (affectionately called "Grammar") dies in bizarre circumstances.