The novel opens with a prologue and a flashback to protagonist Garner Quinn's childhood at the Jersey shore. On summer nights, in the 1960s, yellow trucks trailed white plumes of mosquito spray that children, including Quinn, ran through. The chemical exposure caused her nightmares.

That is where readers meet Cilda Fields, a hired nanny from Jamaica. Quinn's father, a famous attorney, and her mother, an infamous drunk, hired Cilda to care for Quinn.

The story opens at the Jersey shoreline 30 years later. Quinn, her teenage daughter, Temple, and Cilda live in Quinn's secluded home. Quinn, a single mother, writes from home, while Cilda tends house for Quinn.

Quinn's office sits less than 500 feet from the main house and the guest's quarters.

Quinn describes the buildings of her home as having a dark Gothic architecture. The steeply pitched gables, slanting roofs, and weathered shingles make the buildings appear as...