In a Dark Season, by Vicki Lane

I met Vicki Lane at a women's writers retreat last May at Lake Logan, sponsored by Western North Carolina Woman magazine. She told me about her blog and encouraged me to try my own. I'd not read her work then, but I grabbed all her novels when she came to read and talk at City Lights Bookstore later in the summer. I spent nearly all of one stormy afternoon reading IN A DARK SEASON. I couldn't put it down. (The thunder and lightning made a grand accompaniment!) I don't think any reader would be able to put this book down. All of her other novels turned out to have the same effect on me--mesmerizing. They'd make great stocking stuffers, by the way!



Here is a brief excerpt from Vicki's novel.


from Chapter 1 ~ The Palimpsest

Friday, December 1



The madwoman whispered into the blue shadows of a wintry afternoon. Icy wind caught at her hair, loosing it to whip her cheeks and sting her half-closed eyes. Pushing aside the long black strands, she peered through the fragile railing of the upper porch. Below, the fieldstone walkway with its humped border of snow-hooded dark boxwoods curled about the house. Beyond the walkway the land sloped away, down to the railroad tracks and the gray river where icy foam spattered on black rocks and a perpetual roar filled the air.

Her hand clutching the flimsy balustrade, the madwoman began to pull herself to her feet, keeping her gaze fixed on the stony path far below. Behind her a door rattled on its rusty hinges and slammed, only to creak open again.

She paused, aware of the loom of the house around her – feeling it waiting, crouching there on its ledge above the swift-flowing river. The brown skeletons of the kudzu that draped the walls and chimneys rustled in a dry undertone, the once-lush vines diminished to delicate netting that meshed the peeling clapboards and spider-webbed the cracked and cloudy windowpanes. From every side, in small mutterings and rustlings, the old house spoke.

None escape. None.


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Hooked already?

Now, go to vickilanemysteries.com and you will find more excerpts, recipes, photos, and a link to her wonderful blog (vickilanemysteries.blogspot.com). I go to this blog everyday to find out what's happening on Vicki's farm and in her life. The photos are gorgeous and the commentary always enticing.