When a demon from Jewish lore threatens the Tree of Life, a source of untold power and immortality, Anna Ballinkay and Colin Pierce enter the Otherworld to stop him, where they discover that the true danger is closer than they think.

Thirteen-year-old Annabella Ballinkay has never been normal, even by her psychic family's standards. Every generation uses their abilities to help run the Ravenfall Inn, a sprawling, magical B&B at the crossroads of the human world and the Otherworld. So when fourteen-year-old Colin Pierce arrives at Ravenfall searching for his missing older brother and the supernatural creature who killed their parents, Anna jumps at the chance to help. But the mysteries...

As Emma waits with excitement for her cousin Abby to arrive for a sleepover, a snowstorm brings so many visitors to her family's inn that she and her mother give up their own rooms, and still Abby has not appeared.