Gothictown

In 1832, at the height of the Georgia gold rush, gold had been discovered on the banks of the Etowah River on land owned by Alfred Minette. As men flocked to work in the mine and others to supply their needs, a small town arose and Minette named it after his firstborn, a beautiful but frail girl named Juliana who had died years ago in South Carolina.

But now the Civil War was waging and while the men and boys of Juliana were off fighting, Minette forced their wives and children to work in the mines.

Union General Philip Sheridan and his troops were laying waste to all he passed through on his march to the sea and Juliana lay in his path. Destroying the town meant destroying the wealth that helped fuel the Confederate war effort and so three of the town elders, including Minette, formed a plan to save it.

And it worked. Sheridan did stop in Juliana and he and his men decimated the town’s food and livestock supplies but they didn’t discover the mine, nor the women and children trapped in the bottom of the mine when the town’s elders had the entrance dynamited with explosives. Sheridan and his troops tarried and by the time the mine was unsealed, all those insides were dead. When the surviving men returned home from the war, they were told their families had been sent away and they could now work in the lumber mill Minette was building, accept it as God’s will that their families were gone, and start anew.

It was a small sacrifice for the good of all, Minette argued, and that his daughter, Julianna, was pleased with their offering.

More than 160 years later, Billie Hope receives an offer. A former restaurateur, Billie lives in a cramped apartment with her husband and daughter in New York City when she receives an offer to purchase a dream home in historic Juliana for just $100. The offer describes the town as idyllic, and the accompanying photo shows a quaint town square straight out of a storybook as does the link to the professionally done town website. Billie sees it as part of a trend to lure people to help grow stagnant towns with new citizens. Feeling at a dead end in her life and lured by the thought of a pretty house in a lovely small town, she replies.

It’s an offer too good to be true, but desperation often clouds people’s judgment, so it is with Billie and her family who make the move to Juliana.

“A small town,” she thinks. “Our own house. A perfect childhood for Mere and…another restaurant for me.”

Of course, it doesn’t work out that way.

Bestselling author Emily Carpenter, whose other suspense novels include Burying the Honeysuckle Girls and The Weight of Lies, weaves a frightening and compelling tale as we follow Billie and her family move from elation at what they see as a chance for a new and better life and the dawning realization that they may have embarked upon a dangerous and frightening adventure.