In Countenance, debut novelist Joy Ross Davis creates a suspenseful yet heartfelt story full of intrigue and unexpected revelations, where magic is made in the kitchen and angels can fall in love. Her memorable characters inhabit a home that is more than it seems, unwittingly preparing for a final showdown where forces battle for the souls of both those who reside there and the dead who cannot move on to the next realm. Thirty-eight-year-old Nealey Monaghan's life is turned upside-down one night when her sister's estranged ex-husband kills nearly everyone she loves in one fell swoop. Numb to the world, Nealey is taken in by her charmingly eccentric Aunt Sylvie, cookbook author and proprietress of the Playhouse Inn Bed and Breakfast in the hills of Tennessee. Hoping to help her niece find purpose and meaning in her life again, Sylvie makes Nealey a co-owner and begins teaching her the tricks of the tradeand the secrets of the house. Unbeknownst to either of them, nor to the ghost relatives who have lived there since they were murdered in 1889, there is a common thread running through their veins, and a deep secret that is dying to come out