Tess's Revenge

A Novel

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 haunted 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Her husband, Charles, a psychiatrist, is withdrawn and sleeping with a client.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 on the eve of Halloween. . .

With the creeping dread of of Shirley Jackson and Joyce Carol Oates, Tess's Revenge is hypnotic, creepy, and deliciously perverse. A haunting portrait of American suburbia.