Acacia City, a sleepy suburban enclave south of San Francisco, is in trouble. The fog that visits it daily is now trying to destroy it. There's a human-sized, batlike, bloodsucking monster trying to hunt down one of its residents. How had it come to this? And who can save it from the looming disaster? Its fate curiously rests in the hands of two of its residents: the teenaged Walter Benjamin and his retired grandmother, Carmel Reyes. Until just a few weeks earlier, Walter was living the normal life of an American teen: high school, homework, alienation from his parents. Carmel would tell him rather ordinary stories of her childhood in the Philippines as she cooked his favorite sticky-rice snacks. But one day, at a party in a local restaurant, their unexciting lives are upended when both of them sense a mysterious and menacing presence, eventually leading Walter to discover his grandmother's secret past and his own hidden talents. Mentored in her youth by a mysterious woman named Fermina Javier, Carmel must now do the same for Walter-and quickly. Together with Walter's prankster friends Robert and Emily, grandson and grandmother soon find themselves trying to fight off the most unusual things to ever visit Acacia City. Walter must stop the fog using his newfound but untrained powers. Carmel must confront a monster from her past, who had somehow found her in this sleepy city. All Walter has about him are his wits, his two cohorts, and snacks his grandmother had always cooked for him. They must save the city as they try to navigate this dangerous and unexpected path to their new destiny. is Roy L. Santos's first novel and the first of a trilogy.