When Stephanie finds a hand-written story in a box of old papers, the path her life is to take becomes clear. Haunted by the true tale of a duel that took place 200 years ago, a ritual as tragic in its inevitability as it is in its futility, she is determined to harness its ghoulish beauty for her own ends.

A Melancholy Event is a tale of obsession, of a story that inhabits and infects the landscape, drawing the characters in this novel into its own world.