This is where the story begins -- but not where it ends.

Before the house was inherited.
Before the killings began.
Before the truth clawed its way to the surface.
There were the women.

Before the Tracks Were Laid is a prequel novella collection, best read before Tracks Beneath the Clay. These three interconnected, atmospheric stories introduce the land, the women, and the dangerous legacy that haunts the Cheney estate in Marietta, Georgia, but the full story unfolds in the novel that follows.

Set across generations on cursed Southern ground, this Southern Gothic collection explores inheritance, silence, and survival through the lives of women bound by blood, memory, and the land itself. These novellas reveal the unspoken history beneath the estate and the first threads of violence, resistance, and reckoning that shape what comes next.

This collection is intentionally intimate and incomplete by design.
It lays the foundation, raises the questions, and awakens the land, but resolution comes in Tracks Beneath the Clay.

Readers drawn to Southern Gothic stories of generational secrets, women's resilience, and land that remembers will find this prequel an atmospheric introduction to the world of Tracks Beneath the Clay.

Perfect for readers who love:

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Southern Gothic atmosphere

•
Generational secrets

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Women-centered historical suspense

•
Slow-burn dread and buried truths

Continue the story in Tracks Beneath the Clay, the full-length novel.

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• Literature & FictionHistorical FictionMystery, Thriller & Suspense
• Literature & FictionHistorical FictionUnited States

• Publication Date: July 16, 2025
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 172 Pages
• File Size: 18 KB