Description
From Bram Stoker Award nominee Ronald Malfi comes a chilling novel of childhood revisited, memories resurrected, and fears reborn . . .
After years away, Laurie returns to the home where she was raised by a cold, distant father who recently exorcised his demons. But no amount of cleaning can wipe away the troubled past. She feels it lurking in the broken moldings, sees it staring from an empty picture frame, hears it laughing in the moldy greenhouse deep in the woods . . .
At first, Laurie thinks she’s imagining things. But when she meets her daughter’s new playmate, she notices her uncanny resemblance to another little girl who used to live next door. Who died next door. With each passing day, Laurie’s uneasiness grows stronger, her thoughts more disturbing. Like her father, is she slowly losing her mind? Or is something truly unspeakable happening?
“Much more than a haunted house story.” —Cemetery Dance Magazine
“Takes well-known tropes and completely turns them around.” —IHeartReading
“Slowly but surely creeps under your skin.” —The Horror Bookshelf
“The perfect ghost story.” —HorrorBuzz
About the Author
Ronald Malfi is the bestselling, award-winning author of many novels and novellas in the horror, mystery, and thriller genres. In 2011, his novel,Floating Staircase, was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for best novel by the Horror Writers Association, and also won a gold IPPY award. Perhaps his most well-received novel,Come with Me(2021), about a man who learns a dark secret about his wife after she's killed, has received stellar reviews, including a starred review fromBookPage, andPublishers Weeklyhas said, "Malfi impresses in this taut, supernaturally tinged mystery... and sticks the landing with a powerful denouement. There’s plenty here to enjoy."His most recent novels,Come with Me(2021) andBlack Mouth(2022), tackle themes of grief and loss, and of the effects of childhood trauma and alcoholism, respectively. Both books have been critically praised, withPublishers WeeklycallingBlack Moutha "standout" book of the year. These novels were followed byGhostwritten(2022), a collection of four subtly-linked novellas about haunted books and the power of the written word.Ghostwrittenreceived a starred review fromPublishers Weekly, which called the book a "wonderfully meta collection...vibrantly imagined," and that "Malfi makes reading about the perils of reading a terrifying delight."Among his most popular works isDecember Park, a coming-of-age thriller set in the '90s, wherein five teenage boys take up the hunt for a child murderer in their hometown of Harting Farms, Maryland. In interviews, Malfi has expressed that this is his most autobiographical book to date. In 2015, this novel was awarded the Beverly Hills International Book Award for best suspense novel. It has been optioned several times for film.Bone White(2017), about a man searching for his lost twin brother in a haunted Alaskan mining town, was touted as "an elegant, twisted, gripping slow-burn of a novel that burrows under the skin and nestles deep," byRT Book Reviews, and has also been optioned for television by Fox21/Disney and Amazon Studios.His novelsLittle Girls(2015) andThe Night Parade(2016) explore broken families forced to endure horrific and extraordinary circumstances, which has become the hallmark for Malfi's brand of intimate, lyrical horror fiction.His earlier works, such asVia Dolorosa(2007) andPassenger(2008) explored characters with lost or confused identities, wherein Malfi experimented with the ultimate unreliable narrators. He maintained this trend in his award-winning novel,Floating Staircase(2011), which the author has suggested contains "multiple endings for the astute reader."His more "monstery" novels, such asSnow(2010) andThe Narrows(2012) still resonate with his inimitable brand of literary cadence and focus on character and story over plot. Both books were highly regarded by fans and reviewers in the genre.A bit of a departure, Malfi published the crime dramaShamrock Alleyin 2009, based on the true exploits of his own father, a former Secret Service agent. The book was optioned several times for film.Ronald Malfi was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1977, the eldest of four children, and eventually relocated to Maryland, where he currently resides along the Chesapeake Bay.When he's not writing, he's performing with the rock band VEER, who can be found at veerband.net and on Twitter at @VeerBandVisit with Ronald Malfi on Facebook, Twitter (@RonaldMalfi), or athttp://www.ronaldmalfi.com.
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