Where the Sugar Rots

By: Hannah Myers

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Some houses do not haunt. They remember.

Widowed after only eleven months of marriage, Abigail Hughes arrives at Belle Ombre with a will, a safety-deposit key, and no intention of being managed by her dead husband’s family.

But the grand Louisiana estate Lawrence Hughes left behind is not the inheritance he promised. It is a rotting mansion surrounded by sugarcane, locked rooms, turned portraits, and sounds that move through the walls at night.

James Fisher, Belle Ombre’s brooding caretaker, knows which doors are sealed. He knows which names should not be spoken. And he knows far more about Lawrence Hughes than any loyal servant should.

As Abby uncovers traces of a woman erased from the family history and a child the Hughes name tried to bury, Belle Ombre begins to confess what the living will not. But the closer Abby comes to the truth, the more dangerous the house becomes—and the harder it is to resist the man who has spent years guarding its worst secret.

To survive Belle Ombre, Abby must decide what is worth inheriting: the house, the truth, or the life no dead man gets to choose for her.

Where the Sugar Rots is an adult Southern Gothic romantic suspense novel with dark-romance elements, featuring a haunted Louisiana estate, a morally gray caretaker, family secrets, slow-burn tension, and a heroine reclaiming her name, body, and future.