When an ancient golden bear is found walled up in a dilapidated St Petersburg bathhouse, researcher Daniel St Clare and his frosty collegue Em Hayward set out for Arkhanelsk to verify its age. But in the deep of night they are mysteriously set adrift. Lost and exhausted, they turn north, sinking ever deeper into the secrets and terrors of the Russian landscape. Daniel's lost love, the wild and beautiful Rosa Kovalenka, knows the only way to save him is to outwit the haunted Chenchikov family. But their home, deep in unknowable, impenetrable forests, is a shadowy tangle of grief, desire and treachery. Only Papa Grigory, full of tales and riddles of times past, seems to have the knowledge they need ... But will he destroy them all in order for his world to survive?