A haunted hotel, a family curse, mysterious Cossacks, hidden treasure, murdered guests—what looked to be a routine family reunion is turning into a serious Bad Hair Day indeed, one that is trouble all the way down to the Dead Roots. Marla Shore thought the only tricky part of the reunion at Florida’s historic Sugar Crest Plantation Resort would be introducing her fiancé, Detective Dalton Vail, to her family, and vice versa. But that was before her Aunt Polly was found suffocated in her bed. It turns out that her family has a tangle of ties to Sugar Crest, including Aunt Polly’s father, who once owned the plantation—and hid a fortune in gems somewhere on the grounds. And though Sugar Crest is slated for demolition, many people would profit if it were not destroyed, and some just might go to any lengths to make sure it remains standing. To top it all off, the plantation was built on a Native-American burial mound, which Marla knows is never a good idea, and then the groundskeeper turns up dead! Whatever is going on at Sugar Crest, someone is willing to go to great lengths to keep it hidden. But he or she has not planned on Marla, who will stop at nothing to learn the truth before the killer strikes again.