"Not alive. Not dead. Somewhere in between lie the Beautiful Dead. Something strange is happening at Ellerton High. Phoenix is the fourth teenager to die within a year. His street fight stabbing follows the deaths of Jonas, Summer, and Arizona in equally strange and sudden circumstances. Rumors of ghosts and strange happenings rip through the small community as it comes to terms with shock and loss. Darina, Phoenix's grief stricken girlfriend, is...

After her parents die under mysterious circumstances, sixteen-year-old Renee Winters is sent from California to an old-fashioned boarding school in Maine, where she meets a fellow student to whom she seems strangely connected.

The soul that Renée and Dante share cannot sustain them both but Renée may hold the secret of eternal life which they must keep safe from the Liberum and a team of Monitors as they cross Europe seeking the Netherworld, a legendary chasm where souls go to be cleansed.