In The Pines by Mariah Stillbrook - Paranormal Fantasy - These witches have one month to end the spiritual threat to their bloodline. And not kill each other.
by Mariah Stillbrook
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
Publisher: Creative James Media
Date of Publication: November 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-956183-50-4
Number of pages: 374
Word Count: 110,334
Cover Artist: Triumph Covers
These witches have one month to end the spiritual threat to their bloodline. And not kill each other.
Two witches, two secrets, and a curse that could tear a family apart.
Olivia and Ellie have lived their lives knowing a dark entity is stalking their family, determined to kill them all. After the death of Olivia's son, she abandons her magic and her family, leaving Ellie in a nightmare of heartbreak, her marriage crumbling and her sister gone.
Determined to save their mother Arianna from a spell that left her comatose, the two sisters must come together to unravel the riddle of the curse that has haunted their family for generations.
But as they delve into the past, the truth they uncover is more twisted and treacherous than they ever could have imagined. Will they be able to break the curse, or will it consume them all?
Guest Post
What inspired me to write this story?
I was going through a harrowing time when I started drafting the first pages of what would one day become In the Pines. I’ve been surrounded by addiction—pertaining to myself and others—for much of my life. I’ve struggled with an eating disorder that nearly took me down, and then of course all the self-medicating that I went through to deal with it. And as if that wasn’t enough to handle, many of the people close to me have struggled with dependence issues. All of that comes with much emotional pain. This piece enabled me to work through those things as well as work through some damaged relationships.
I was also inspired by a little exercise my sister, mom, and I worked on together (we’re all writers). We called it The Pink Curler Chronicles because my mom, from the moment my sister and I can remember, has started her day with a pair of pink curlers on top of her head. Our banter began nearly twenty years ago, when my sister called me (this was back when I was just beginning to shift my craft towards novel writing) and informed me that she’d stopped by our parents’ house just in time to have our mother answer the door with the pastel relics stuck to her head like a crown. As my sister attempted to speak through her hysterics, she pointed out that those crusty old curlers probably knew every single secret my mother has ever kept. Secrets she probably shared with her own sister. So many years later, when I would finally write In the Pines, I had to add in a little pink. It’s all just part of the family magic. Sidenote: my sister and I still haven’t completely cracked into those pink curlers. Our mother—that brilliant witch—has her juiciest details on extreme lockdown.
Excerpt:
The sound of the waves crashing down below, the impending fog rolling in, the wind sending curses past my cheeks, streaked with salt water—all of it seemed to have been put into slow motion as I stood there, full of rage and powerless against this demon as she held my daughter’s life in her tainted, dead hands. Eight words were all I was afforded in the two seconds that followed. “You were the one who let me in.”And then it all happened at once. There was a "uttering of feathers, the sensation of a stick being forced into my hand, and the sound of my own screams as my daughter’s body fell; but then I just as quickly lunged forward, standing on air and pointing my bit of willow down at her body just before it was about to make contact with the jagged rocks below.
Maddie, now in possession of her own body, stared up at me with wide eyes and a gaping mouth as I floated over her like the witch I once was. And before she could utter a single word, before I could make out the laughter that seemed to be drifting back into the fog, I used my wand to lift her back up to the cliff and set her down before landing back on solid earth myself.
.png)
About the Author:
Mariah Stillbrook, originally from Iowa, lives in Colorado with her white German shepherd, husband, and little girl. She graduated from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She spends most of her days writing, reading, and enjoying the occasional hike. In her late twenties she realized that her writing was missing something, magic. She now focuses her writing on horror and urban fantasy in both adult and young adult genres.
Website: https://www.mariahstillbrook.com/
Newsletter: https://bit.ly/45EeLxb
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mstillbrook
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariahstillbrook/
Comments
Post a Comment