From Daryl Gregory, whose Pandemonium was one of the most exciting debut novels in memory, comes an astonishing work of soaring imaginative power that breaks new ground in contemporary fantasy.
Switchcreek was a normal town in eastern Tennessee until a mysterious disease killed a third of its residents and mutated most of the rest into monstrous oddities. Then, as quickly and inexplicably as it had struck, the disease–dubbed Transcription...

Five friends-- Sally, Emily, Jed, Raymond, and Donny-- spend their Tennessee childhoods trading dreams in the branches of the Castle Tree. As children of the 1950s, they are filled with wild ambitions and determined to live gaudy, glamorous lives. The ties that bind them begin to dissolve when they become teenagers, yet the story continues-- and each of these old friends travels in a direction that he or she could have never anticipated.

Tiny Park County, Tennessee, plans to celebrate Valentine's Day in style with a community fund raiser. Sheriff Tony Abernathy's dream of a crime-free county explodes along with an illegal still. Then his wife is called away from her quilt shop: Her best friend is out of town, and water is pouring from her house -- which contains her ex-husband's corpse.