When Ashley Smith – a bright-eyed but lonely American studying in London – is invited to spend Christmas with her classmate's family at their Cotswolds manor house, it seems like a perfect country idyll. And for Ashley – who records it all in her diary – there's the added romantic potential of her friend's twin brother, Adam, who she thinks could be her wildest dream come true. But is there something strange about the old house, both stately and rundown? What could the motives of the mysterious Chapman family be? And what holiday horrors might be lying in wait?