Seeking social detachment in a tropical setting for seven days of uninterrupted meditation, forty-nine-year-old recovering drug addict Val Silversmith leaves his Midwestern home behind and sets out for the sugar sands and sunset beaches of Southwest Florida to celebrate what should soon be a full decade of clean time. Peace, however, proves elusive as Val instead finds himself at the center of an epic struggle between Maev-his ferociously zealous, black-winged guardian angel-and Seery, the incarnation of addiction. Whispered suggestions of temptation and resistance ricochet painfully against the inner walls of his skull as the fine thread of his sanity begins to unravel. The first stitch is ripped free when Val crosses paths with a hauntingly disturbed sixteen-year-old boy who calls himself the Beloved Freak. Addiction itself weaves its way through a dark narration of the tale of one man's frantic attempt to maintain his once-steely grip on recovery, and one boy's battle against a major depressive disorder and the siren's song of suicide.
