Twenty-five-year-old Cassie Danvers is holed up in her family’s crumbling mansion in rural St. Jude, Ohio, mourning the loss of the woman who raised her—her grandmother, June. But a knock on the door forces her out of isolation. Cassie has been named the sole heir to legendary matinee idol Jack Montgomery’s vast fortune. How did Jack Montgomery know her name? Could he have crossed paths with her grandmother all those years ago? What other shocking secrets could June’s once-stately mansion hold?
Soon Jack’s famous daughters come knocking, determined to wrestle Cassie away from the inheritance they feel is their due. Together, they all come to discover the true reasons for June’s silence about that long-ago summer, when Hollywood came to town, and June and Jack’s lives were forever altered by murder, blackmail, and betrayal. As this page-turner shifts deftly between the past and present, Cassie and her guests will be forced to reexamine their legacies, their definition of family, and what it truly means to love someone, steadfastly, across the ages.
My thoughts:
I love stories where there is a dual timeline of events past and present. I found this story to be genuinely absorbing. Though I have to say in the beginning Cassie’s story intrigued me more than her grandmothers story, June. There are so many wonderful characters and characters you will want to throttle in this story and the glam of Hollywood stars, a rambling old home-Two Oaks that was spectacular in its heyday. Voices of the past haunting Cassie as she is faced with discovering her family’s legacy.
There is some twist to the plot and I have to say, I guessed what was going to happen but not in every detail of the plot. There were some surprises for me.
I found this story to be thoroughly enjoyable and atmospheric. I also enjoyed the authors details to Two Oaks and the roots planted there by not only the people that lived in the house but by the people in the town that affected their lives. I wouldn’t mind revisiting this story again one day.
I rated this book four stars!
Centuries ago, Raphael was a blasphemous knight who fought in the Crusades purely for his own mercenary benefit, and to satisfy his taste for killing. Now, condemned for his evil passions and hypocrisy, he wanders the earth a vampire, cursed with first-hand knowledge of the supernatural world he once denied existed. The powerful relic he still possesses from his days as a Crusader has been stolen by a rival vampire who has recruited an army of soulless underlings to aid him in spreading evil. At the time he learns this, Raphael has been hunting this vampire for nearly a century, and it seems the final battle is destined to take place in Prague.br For help in this quest, Raphael must enlist the aid of two humans, David and Susan, who suddenly find themselves immersed in a world they never imagined, entangled with supernatural forces they can’t control. Susan, in particular, finds herself conflicted as she struggles with her inexplicable attraction to Raphael. In the end, both Susan and Raphael will be called upon to exercise courage and faith, and in the process, the question, “What would happen if a vampire truly accepted God?” is answered.
A wealthy widow of a nobleman, daughter of a famous scientist, and skeptic who only trusts what can be proven.
I know evil exists, I met it face to face Solomon Noche is a therapist in the seemingly normal small town of Retselville, Kentucky dealing with displaced anger toward God after his family dies tragically. Nightmares encapsulate him where an ancient demonic cult sacrifices children in Retselville. Despite Sol’s protest, God chooses him to stop them. This discovery thrusts him into a journey where reality and psychosis blur as a nightmarish figure torments him with riddles and time-traveling horrors. The first riddle leads Sol to unearth a preacher’s journal from the 1800’s in a secret cellar in his yard. It details Elijah Darius’ mission to stop the cult and his eyewitness account of a demon named Miyah and its demand of child sacrifices to the ancient god Dagon. The journal intertwines with Sol’s life, and guides him to expose more secrets about Retselville, and the evil hidden history of the grounds where he works. As each riddle is solved, more horrors are uncovered including finding a sacrificial altar, a ritual dagger, and a well of children’s skulls. The closer he gets to the truth, the more sinister the secrets become as he believes all of Retselville may be part of the cult and their centuries’ old secrets. More than Sol’s life hangs in the balance, as Miyah tempts him with unfathomable choices. But resolves his only hope is in repentance as only God can save him and defeat this demon and its’ followers. Sol confronts Miyah in its appalling, fallen form a final time, in a battle beyond Retselville and Solomon Noche, but innumerable souls. Whisper A Scream is a supernatural thriller with demons, cults, and time-traveling nightmares. It becomes an intense thrill-ride of suspense, seizing you until the last page, with an addictive story that falls off the edge of horror. Dread seeps into your soul as you awaken to find yourself walking down the mysterious path with Sol and cower at the sights and sounds encountered. Pray your voice is heard as you WHISPER A SCREAM!
Vietnam, 1967.
The first book in the bestselling Mark of the Lion series, A Voice in the Wind brings readers back to the first century and introduces them to a character they will never forget—Hadassah. Torn by her love for a handsome aristocrat, this young slave girl clings to her faith in the living God for deliverance from the forces of decadent Rome.
I have the great pleasure of welcoming Laura Powell to Layered Pages today. Laura is a Features Commissioning Editor at the Daily Telegraph. She has written for The Guardian, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and various magazines. She was awarded a New Writer’s Bursary from Literature Wales and was named as one of Amazon’s Rising Stars. She grew up in South Wales and now lives in London. The Unforgotten is her first novel.
Lucy Campion, a ladies’ maid turned printer’s apprentice in 17th-century London, is crossing Holborn Bridge over the vilest portion of the River Fleet one morning when she encounters a distraught young woman, barely able to speak and clad only in a blood-spattered nightdress. The woman has no memory of who she is or what’s happened to her, and the townspeople believe she’s posessed. But Lucy is concerned for the woman’s well-being and takes her to a physician. When, shockingly, the woman is identified as the daughter of a nobleman, Lucy is asked to temporarily give up her bookselling duties to discreetly serve as the woman’s companion while she remains under the physician’s care. As the woman slowly recovers, she begins-with Lucy’s help-to reconstruct the terrible events that led her to Holborn Bridge that morning. But when it becomes clear the woman’s safety might still be at risk, Lucy becomes unwillingly privy to a plot with far-reaching social implications, and she’ll have to decide how far she’s willing to go to protect the young woman in her care.
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