The
Secrets of Hawthorne House
by
Donald Firesmith
Genre:
Teen Paranormal Mystery
Matt's
life changes forever when a family of druids moves into the
dilapidated Victorian mansion next door. The story of an unlikely
friendship, the clash of two completely different cultures, secret
magic, and a search for the lost Hawthorne treasure.
Fifteen-year-old
Matt Mitchell was having the worst summer imaginable. Matt’s misery
started when a drunk driver killed his mother. Then his father moved
him and his twin sister to the small town of Hawthorne in rural
Indiana, as far as his grieving father could take from the ocean that
Matt's mother had loved. At the new high school, three bullies are
determined to make Matt miserable. And to top it off, Matt learns
that the recluse who lives in the 'haunted house" next door is
none other than Old Lady Hawthorne, the town’s infamous witch and
murderer. Matt’s terrible summer is turning into an awful autumn
when something quite unexpected happens. Old Lady Hawthorne’s niece
and her three children arrive, and Matt meets Gerallt.
**Only
.99 cents!!**
Amazon
* Apple
* B&N
* Kobo
* Smashwords
Hawthorne
House
Hawthorne
House
The sun had just set
as Matt, now transformed into a youthful vampire, walked out his front door to
join Gerallt and Gareth for their planned evening of house-to-house candy
extortion. Rising in the east like a pale pumpkin in the sky, a full moon
peeked out from behind wispy translucent clouds. The temperature was dropping
rapidly, and Matt drew his cheap black and scarlet cape around him with a
flourish before striding out into the gathering darkness.
A thin mist was
rising from the dew-drenched grass, forming a low layer of fog that darkened
the shadows beneath the row of oaks lining Hawthorne Drive. Matt looked next
door at the old Victorian mansion and was amazed by its transformation. Each
tall window of the Hawthorne House framed a single colorful candle, burning
with flickering flames of yellow, orange, or red. A few candles even burned
with the same sickly shade of green that illuminated the bottom of the twin
streams of smoke rising from the mansion’s massive stone chimneys. The green
glowing smoke bubbling out of the chimney pots rose only a few feet before
cascading down the gabled roof to become a low-lying fog. Matt was surprised to
see a black shape suddenly swoop through the smoke, only to be followed by
another and yet another. Large bats fluttered around the twin chimneys and the
three towers, feasting on clouds of ghostly moths seemingly drawn to the pale
green smoke. Matt had seen the occasional brown bat before, but never so many
and never as big as these.
Only the short attic
windows were without candles. Yet, while watching in wonder at the fluttering
forms, Matt would have sworn that out of the edge of his vision he had seen a
pale figure briefly looking back at him from one of the darkened windows. He
looked back at the window, but the ghostly shape had vanished as quickly as it
had appeared. It sent a shiver up his spine.
Walking slowly over
to the Hawthorne’s gate, Matt admired the fantastic cobwebs that covered their
fence, bushes, and even the lower branches of the trees. Not the thick cottony
store-bought stuff he’d seen at the neighbor’s houses, they appeared to be real
spider webs. Each one was outlined in diminutive droplets of dew and hosted
what looked like a large black spider sitting smugly at its center. Matt was
impressed; the webs looked expensive, and it must have taken lots of work to
drape them so realistically.
The gate creaked
mournfully as Matt opened it. Thirteen of the most intricately carved
jack-o-lanterns he’d ever seen lined the front walk. Each had a different
expression, some friendly and some almost terrifying, and every one worthy of
wonder and envy. They were so incredible that Matt thought Gwyneth, her mom, and great aunt must surely have worked
all day on them.
The fog was getting
thicker. Gazing into the darkness on either side of the twin rows of carved
pumpkins, he could just make out fairy rings of large, white toadstools around
teepees of dried corn stalks and several giant pumpkins at least a yard across.
To his right, what looked like a real skeleton hung suspended by a hangman’s
noose from a lower branch of the huge oak in the corner of their front yard. To
his left, another pair of realistic skeletons sat hand in hand in the small
gazebo next to the fence between their houses. Clearly, Matt thought, the Hawthornes
went all out on Halloween.
The covered porch was
lined with more of the marvelous jack-o-lanterns. Cobwebs hung from the newly
painted gingerbread trim and between the ornately turned spindles of the
recently repaired railing. Leaning over to take a closer look at one of the
webs, Matt jerked back in shocked surprise. Both the big black spider and its
web were real! Turning in amazement, he went to the windows for a better look
at the colored candles; they too were real with flickering flames burning
yellow, orange, red, or green.
A
geek by day, Donald Firesmith works as a system and software engineer
helping the US Government acquire large, complex software-intensive
systems. In this guise, he has authored seven technical books,
written numerous software- and system-related articles and papers,
and spoken at more conferences than he can possibly remember. He's
also proud to have been named a Distinguished Engineer by the
Association of Computing Machinery, although his pride is tempered
somewhat by his fear that the term "distinguished" makes
him sound like a graybeard academic rather than an active engineer
whose beard is still slightly more red than gray.
By
night and on weekends, his alter ego writes modern paranormal
fantasy, apocalyptic science fiction, action and adventure novels and
relaxes by handcrafting magic wands from various magical woods and
mystical gemstones. His first foray into fiction is the book Magical
Wands: A Cornucopia of Wand Lore written under the pen name Wolfrick
Ignatius Feuerschmied. He lives in Crafton, Pennsylvania with his
wife Becky, and his son Dane, and varying numbers of dogs, cats, and
birds.
Follow
the tour HERE
for exclusive content and a giveaway!
1 comments:
No questions. I like the cover.
Post a Comment