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In The Fourth House, the light only reveals what the dark wants you to see.
A village's disturbing past. A dilapidated mansion shrouded in shadows. Whispers of a ghost story long forgotten -- until an eerily familiar woman arrives, reigniting its sinister legacy in a tale hailed as "Suspenseful... Impressively well crafted... Genuinely creepy -- and unpredictable, to boot." -- Kirkus Reviews
Sunny Johnson has it all: a fulfilling career teaching abnormal psychology, a devoted psychiatrist husband, and the joy of new motherhood. But horrifying visions within a crumbling mansion by water -- dismissed as peripartum psychosis -- shatter her reality. When Taylor threatens to take their newborn daughter, Rebecca, from her, Sunny flees with the child to a distant riverside village, searching for refuge and answers.
There, she finds Searchlight -- a decaying former funeral home turned bed and breakfast that feels pulled from her fragmented memories. Its dank halls murmur secrets of a tragic past, ghostly legends the locals won't speak of, and dusty diaries filled with entries seem to echo her own unraveling.
But Sunny doesn't believe in apparitions or past lives, yet she can't shake the feeling she's been there before. Every flicker of clarity pulls her deeper into the shadows of her mind -- and closer to deadly truths that could sever her bond with Rebecca, the fragile thread anchoring her to reality... if Taylor doesn't find them first.
In Searchlight, the line between the real and the imagined is as thin as a candle's flame -- and what binds Sunny to its past may be the most dangerous ghost of all.
An Overture In Shadows: A Lullaby
Beneath the cold moon where whispers run deep,
A house waits in silence, its secrets to keep.
Searchlight stands watching, its tower looms tall,
A distant lighthouse spins specters that dance on its walls.
A mother grows frantic, her world torn apart,
Her visions, they whisper, a truth to her heart.
She flees to the mansion she's dreamed of before,
Where diaries beckon and defy the town's lore.
Hush now, don't stir, for the past's not yet dead,
It lingers in rooms where the lost fear to tread.
And echoes of answers twist out of the light,
While darkness grows closer to swallow the night.
A daughter in shadows, a mother's faint cries,
Their fates intertwined as the Hunter Moon spies.
The tower hides bloodstains, the rafters a noose,
The ties of a family too tight to undo.
But what if the visions are not from the past?
What if they're delusions she struggles to grasp?
A doll holds a secret, a perfume a clue,
The light sweeps the walls, showing horrors anew.
Dream sweet, my darling, the night's here to stay,
It cradles your fears and keeps dawn far, far away.
The truth in The Fourth House will not set you free,
For the light only reveals what the dark wants you to see.
Trigger Warning: Hell yes. Come inside. Stay a while. But be warned: the light only reveals what the dark wants you to see. And once you do, you can't unsee it -- because the only thing more unsettling than the first read is the second, when you face the darkness in a new light.
About the Author:
James P. Barker is a multi-award-winning writer, novelist, screenwriter, and essayist with degrees in Psychology and Media Study (concentration: interpretation) from the University at Buffalo. His essays on storytelling and perception have been cited and used in academic and creative circles around the world. The Fourth House draws from a unique synthesis of narrative theory, neuroscience, and philosophy.
Visit him at jamespbarkerwriter.com.
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