On a September day in a town called Bastion Falls, it started to snow. And snow. And snow.

Young, pretty, and divorced, Marilyn was nobody special in Bastion Falls, a town like any other: People had affairs, cheated on taxes, and kept their secrets. But on the day of the freak September snowstorm, everything changed. Marilyn's old truck died on the highway into town. And a test of her courage, and her soul, was about to begin. Fifteen-year-old Shandy seemed ordinary, too. But she had a gift for seeing things others couldn't. And as snow buried the town, as early autumn became bitter winter, terrible things were beginning to happen to the residents of Bastion Falls - particularly the scared ones, the ones with something to hide. Now fate was bringing Marilyn and Shandy together: two women who would find each other, take a leap of faith, and race time and nature to save a town - and set themselves free.