Shivaree

With The Source (Witching Savannah Book 2) in the final stages of copy editing, and The Void (Witching Savannah Book 3) in the hands of my (first) editor, I am turning back to Shivaree, the novella I began late last summer.

Shivaree is my take on the vampire tale. I know, I know.The world is awash in stories about vampires.

What makes Shivaree unique is that this dark Gothic dream unfolds in a time (the early 1950s) and place (the fictional town of Conroy, Georgia) where supernatural evil is more than given a run for its money by the evil engendered by racism and other forms of bigotry. In fact, one of the challenges in writing Shivaree has been making my vampire more frightening than my human monsters. Although evil, through and through, in many ways Shivaree's vampire remains a more empathetic character than many of Conroy's other residents. The blurb follows:

Shivaree

At the close of the Korean War, sturdy army nurse Corinne Ford turns her back on a troubled past to travel to rural Georgia and marry her battlefield sweetheart. Corinne soon learns she was not the first woman in her fiancé's life. The once exquisite Ruby, failed actress and dabbler in dark magic, had been brought back from Hollywood to her father's house, sick, broken, changed. Her death cleared the way for many who had wished that she had never returned. Soon, Corinne is confronted with evidence that her fiancé's first love is neither forgotten nor truly gone. Backlit by the Klan's burning crosses and scored by the cacophony of shivaree, the traditional wedding night abduction of the groom, SHIVAREE (A Novella) looks into a world where the monsters of folklore confront the monsters of history. SHIVAREE (A NOVELLA) is a work of Southern Gothic Horror running approximately 30K words.