Tess's Revenge

A Novel

De: Russell Gilwee

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

From the author of The Night Sitter and Here Lurk Monsters, a spellbinding tale of domestic suspense about a lovelorn suburban housewife who finds macabre inspiration in the dusty pages of a late-Victorian gothic novel on the eve of Halloween.

Some trick-'r-treats are best served cold. . .

Welcome to a quiet and elegant neighborhood where nothing bad is ever supposed to happen. High-crowned trees arch over sleepy sidewalks, neatly trimmed lawns, lush flower gardens, and large turn-of-the-century homes, including a grand old Tudor of dark wood and dusty brick with Halloween jack-o'-lanterns glimmering from its porch shadows.

Barbara Whitfield feels as hollow as one of the holiday pumpkins on her front porch. Knifed open. Carved out. Gutted, really. Leaving only a hard outer shell and a bereft expression for the world to see. Assuming it sees her at all anymore.

Her husband, Charles, a psychiatrist, is withdrawn and sleeping with a client. Their teenage daughter, Samantha, an only child, is increasingly surly and secretive. Unable to sleep at night, her mind slowly slipping into a black abyss, Barbara takes classes at the local university to fill her dreary days only to be roused from her doldrums by the tragic, if irrepressible, heroine of a late-Victorian gothic novel.

The dark curtain of night falls abruptly this time of year without the lazy wink and nod of dusk. And it has begun to rain, too. And with it, a cruel wind. A gathering storm which promises to never end in this quiet and elegant neighborhood where nothing bad is ever supposed to happen. . .

Utterly absorbing, Tess's Revenge is hypnotic, relentlessly creepy, and wonderfully perverse. A haunting portrait of American suburbia.