Hollow Bones

In Vintera, West Virginia, a small Appalachian town, Essa Montgomery and her brother Clyde grew up in New Hope, a church that practiced serpent handling. The shocking deaths of both their parents closed it down. Now twenty, Essa lives alone and keeps to herself in her childhood home, which sits in the shadow of the old church. To her horror, a new and unsettling charismatic pastor has taken over New Hope and revived the dangerous practice.

When the church burns down, Essa is relieved, until she learns that two people died in the fire and that her brother is the prime suspect. The story follows three women whose fates become tangled together in the aftermath.

Juliet Usher makes a living as a psychic medium and has been hardened by life into someone assertive and ruthless. She is expecting a baby, and her partner Clyde's arrest could hardly come at a worse time, so she is ready to do whatever it takes to keep him out of prison. Merrit Callahan is an ambitious news reporter who is willing to bend the rules for a big scoop, and she suspects that Vintera may hold the story that makes her career.

This creepy mystery novel takes its inspiration from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and moves it into a contemporary setting. It is pitched at readers who enjoyed Angie Kim's Miracle Creek and Eli Cranor's Ozark Dogs.