Only one road leads to paradise, and he found it.

University graduate James Witson needs a change of scene in order to get away from the English professor who ruined his life and the other painful memories James wants to forget. He randomly chooses a remote coastal village in which to find himself and write a great novel.

Paradise Cove is perched on the edge of the continent, a thin strip of civilization between the storm-tossed ocean and a thick, dark forest. Most of the locals appear friendly enough, although they hold a few odd beliefs such as little people in the forest and a White Lady who haunts the by-ways.

James has no use for ghosts or witches, but even he has to admit things in Paradise Cove are strange. From the mansion down by the harbor that looks more like a pagan temple than a home to the uncanny way the girl at the general store anticipates his wishes.

But James isn't the only one hunting for something. An archaeologist is already in the village, rummaging through her rental house, trying to find an old journal that is the key to a mysterious tomb and possible riches. When Dr. Edith Bernard's student helpers flee the dig site on the barrens, she enlists James as her assistant. As they try to understand why the original inhabitants abandoned the area over two thousand years before the Europeans arrived, there are more questions than answers.

Searching for himself, James Witson finds far more than he bargained for.