Say
Nothing of What You See
by
Christy Effinger
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
When
her aunt steps off a grain elevator into the emptiness of a prairie
evening, Mira Piper loses her one protector. Chloe, her flighty
mother, impulsively drags her daughter to Bramblewood, an isolated
spiritualist retreat in northern Michigan, run by the enigmatic Dr.
Virgil Simon.
Chloe
plans to train as a medium but it's Mira who discovers she can
communicate with the dead. When her mother abandons her, Mira
discovers a darker aspect to Bramblewood: the seemingly kind doctor
has a sinister side and a strange control over his students.
Then
one winter's day Troy Farrington arrives, to fulfill his mother's
dying wish and deliver her letter to the doctor. But calamity strikes
and he finds himself a captive, tended by a sympathetic Mira. Haunted
by her dead aunt and desperate to escape Bramblewood, Mira makes a
devil's deal with Dr. Simon. But fulfillment comes with a steep
cost...betrayal.
Excerpt
I
remember the way she fell.
I
remember, too, the moment just before it happened, when I came home
from my summer job at the snow cone stand and found the house empty.
Aunt
Charlotte had not set foot outside her bedroom for days, and now
suddenly she was gone. She left a candle burning on the kitchen
table, a damp towel on the bathroom floor, an empty shot glass on the
nightstand. Her bedroom smelled of rose lotion and whiskey.
One of
her straw sandals lay in the living room. The other lay on its side
in the hall, as if she had hastily kicked it off on her way out the
door. It meant trouble, all right, if Aunt Charlotte was barefoot.
She never did anything sane when she was barefoot.
I picked
up the sandals and stepped outside. A fat bumblebee ascended from one
of the peonies by the porch steps, drunk with nectar. He banged
stupidly against the screen door once, twice, and then careened
around the house, clearly annoyed.
My gaze
swept across our small yard and down the country road to the grain
elevator. From somewhere far away came the discordant wail of a
train. I glanced along the tracks and out into the cornfield before
turning back to the grain elevator. What I saw there made me drop the
sandals.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR
Bio and Links:
Christy
Effinger’s poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in various
print and online publications. She lives near Indianapolis. Her
website is www.christyeffinger.com.
Facebook:
http://facebook.com/christyeffinger
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/christyeffinger
Goodreads:
http://goodreads.com/christyeffinger
The Wild
Rose Press:
Amazon:
BN.com
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ReplyDeleteThanks I enjoyed the excerpt. I always thought it would be cool to be able to speak to the dead
ReplyDeleteThe title intrigues.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the excerpt, thank you!
ReplyDeleteThanks for showcasing my book on your blog.
ReplyDeleteI liked the excerpt and the cover photo, thank you.
ReplyDeleteInteresting blurb and I liked the cover.
ReplyDeleteTalking to the dead... sounds good thank you
ReplyDeleteI liked everything, intrigue, suspense, fun..
ReplyDeletei loved the excerpt
ReplyDeleteI liked the Excerpt!
ReplyDeleterounder9834 @yahoo.com