Title: Our Fearful Roots
Authors: Carmilla Voiez and Faith Marlow
Publisher: Indomitable Ink
Cover: Paul Grover
Interior: Dreams2Media
Edits: That Editor Chick
Release Date: October 1, 2021
Genre: Southern Gothic Horror/ Paranormal
Dark memories are carried on the scent of roses.
Mary wants a better life for her family and hopes the house she inherited from her aunt in Alabama will be a sanctuary for them all, but Mary and the house share a terrible secret.
Roots run deep in the south, but secrets run even deeper.
Join the Anderson family in a tale of Southern Gothic Horror in four voices.
Excerpt:
“Run!” The breath that accompanied the voice in Mary’s ear felt colder than the recycled air blasting through the dashboard vent.
She was smothered by darkness, unbroken except for needle-points of blinking stars far above the towering treetops. Her nose burned with the acidic perfume of conifers while her ears caught the sharp sounds of pine needles snapping underfoot. Adrenaline spurred her onward as she sprinted between ancient trunks, knowing that if she were caught, she too would die.
Not a dream— she wasn’t asleep. Was it an exhaustion-induced hallucination?
Mary was in the passenger seat of their minivan— her husband, Chuck, behind the wheel and her children in the backseat. She shivered uncontrollably while staring in disbelief at the superimposed woodland which obscured the road ahead. Her desert-dry eyes pulsed.
“What?” she asked out loud.
Chuck glanced at her briefly, his forehead furrowed by a frown before returning his concentration to the road ahead. “I didn’t say a word,” he snapped.
“Eric? Anita?”
Eric, at fifteen, was frequently lost in his own world, but Anita had the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a rabbit— a five-year-old who missed nothing and would surely be able to provide the validation Mary needed. Both kids glanced up from their electronic devices and shook their heads. Mary noted their bleary-eyed stares and realized even Anita’s senses had been dulled by the monotony of travel.
After four days on the road and three nights spent in cheap motel rooms that stank of other people’s sweat, the atmosphere in the minivan had the weight and darkness of a burgeoning storm. Her family was wrapped in blankets of resentment, and Mary could taste their anger. None of them wanted to leave Seattle, and all of them blamed her for forcing the move.
“None of you heard the voice?” The sharp, plaintive tone of Mary’s question grated on her nerves. “It sounded old and female.”
“Must have been a dream. You didn’t sleep well last night,” Chuck said.
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