In the fall of 1991, the Furmans move from steaming Tennessee to the isolated woods of Ruby, Georgia to distance themselves from traumatic events involving their seventeen-year-old daughter, Midge. In Ruby, there's little else to do but drink at the Hacksaw, hunt game, or pray to God—something Midge hasn't done in over a year. Yet it's at True Angels Baptist Church that Midge develops a growing obsession with a group of teenage apostates: preacher's twins Audrey and Arthur, the ever-drifting Jeraldine, and cold, ghostly Edith, the granddaughter of a local matriarch. After one long, horrific night binds them all with blood, Midge burrows into their ranks and finds herself among amateur cultists who've shirked Christ in favour of their own God—Magnolia Baker, a locally-infamous teenager who took her own life twelve years before. For the first time in her life, Midge feels herself begin to slot into place. Only the horrors she ran from in Tennessee aren't far behind, and the bodies continue to pile up. Because in Georgia, there are always snakes around—even in the most familiar grasses.