In an immersive Southern Gothic with echoes of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, a restauranteur lured by pandemic-era incentives moves her family to a seemingly idyllic small town in Georgia, only to discover a darkness lurking beneath the Southern hospitality and sun-dappled streets...
Welcome to gentle Juliana, where you can have it all…if you pay the price.
The email that lands in Billie Hope’s inbox seems like a gift from the universe. For $100, she can purchase a spacious Victorian home in Juliana, Georgia, a small town eager to boost its economy in the wake of the pandemic. She can leave behind her cramped New York City rental and the painful memories of shuttering her once thriving restaurant and start over with her husband and her daughter. Plus, she’ll get a business grant to open a new restaurant in a charming riverside community laden with opportunity. It seems like a dream come true…or a devil’s bargain.
*A Publishers Marketplace BUZZ BOOKS Selection*
A few phone calls and one hurried visit later, and Billie, Peter, and six-year-old Meredith are officially part of the Juliana Initiative. The town is everything promised—two hours northwest of Atlanta but a world away from city living, a ‘gentle jewel’ with weather as warm as its people. Between settling into their lavish home and starting her new restaurant, Billie is busy enough to dismiss any troubling signs…
But Billie''s sleep is marred by haunting dreams, and her marriage with Peter is growing increasingly strained. Meanwhile the town elders, all descended from Juliana’s founding families, exert a level of influence that feels less benevolent and more stifling day by day.
There’s something about ‘Gentle Juliana’—something off-kilter and menacing beneath that famous Southern hospitality. And no matter how much Billie longed for her family to come here, she’s starting to wonder how, and if, they’ll ever leave.
For readers of Stacy Willingham, Sarah Langan, Ashley Winstead, and Jess Lourey, a bewitchingly foreboding story about sacrifice, privilege, family, guilt, and the vengeful ghosts of a haunted past – from the bestselling author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls.
Genre: Mystery
Welcome to gentle Juliana, where you can have it all…if you pay the price.
The email that lands in Billie Hope’s inbox seems like a gift from the universe. For $100, she can purchase a spacious Victorian home in Juliana, Georgia, a small town eager to boost its economy in the wake of the pandemic. She can leave behind her cramped New York City rental and the painful memories of shuttering her once thriving restaurant and start over with her husband and her daughter. Plus, she’ll get a business grant to open a new restaurant in a charming riverside community laden with opportunity. It seems like a dream come true…or a devil’s bargain.
*A Publishers Marketplace BUZZ BOOKS Selection*
A few phone calls and one hurried visit later, and Billie, Peter, and six-year-old Meredith are officially part of the Juliana Initiative. The town is everything promised—two hours northwest of Atlanta but a world away from city living, a ‘gentle jewel’ with weather as warm as its people. Between settling into their lavish home and starting her new restaurant, Billie is busy enough to dismiss any troubling signs…
But Billie''s sleep is marred by haunting dreams, and her marriage with Peter is growing increasingly strained. Meanwhile the town elders, all descended from Juliana’s founding families, exert a level of influence that feels less benevolent and more stifling day by day.
There’s something about ‘Gentle Juliana’—something off-kilter and menacing beneath that famous Southern hospitality. And no matter how much Billie longed for her family to come here, she’s starting to wonder how, and if, they’ll ever leave.
For readers of Stacy Willingham, Sarah Langan, Ashley Winstead, and Jess Lourey, a bewitchingly foreboding story about sacrifice, privilege, family, guilt, and the vengeful ghosts of a haunted past – from the bestselling author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls.
Genre: Mystery
Praise for this book
"A gothic banger of a story. Carpenter's talents really shine here: quirky characters that come alive on the page through her voicey Southern prose, and a sneaky, steady building of tension to claustrophobic proportions. Creepy in the best possible way, Gothictown is an absolute knockout." - Kimberly Belle
"Carpenter has a spectacular voice, and I was drawn into this story immediately. With all the gothic spookiness layered into a suspenseful family drama, this pulse-racing story of a New York family relocating to an idyllic southern town with a dark secret is timely, intense, and terrifyingly good." - J T Ellison
"Troubled waters rise slow, and dark, and sneaky in Gothictown... Prepare to breaststroke your way through Carpenter's latest feat to where the floodwaters recede, revealing an utterly satisfying conclusion." - Robert Gwaltney
"The Queen of Southern Gothic dominates in this unputdownable feast in which deeply-drawn characters who inhabit a tantalizingly secretive southern town play a role in deadly secrets that link back to the past. Haunting, atmospheric, sexy, wildly vivid, original, and entrancing, Gothictown proves Carpenter is the master of balancing all the ingredients for a reader's sleepless night of turning the pages." - Shannon Kirk
"A high-energy read that effortlessly reinvents the modern Gothic while delivering all the elements that make the genre so captivating: a haunting atmosphere, a dark legacy, a determined heroine and a whisper of horror. I love the Gothic and I love Gothictown." - Jayne Ann Krentz
"Inviting and atmospheric, this engrossing tale of a charming town hiding a chilling past is southern gothic at its best. Carpenter expertly turns up the heat as a seductive offer turns out too good to be true and dark secrets come to light, raising the temperature until the plot boils over. I was hooked from the very beginning!" - Katherine Wood
"Carpenter has a spectacular voice, and I was drawn into this story immediately. With all the gothic spookiness layered into a suspenseful family drama, this pulse-racing story of a New York family relocating to an idyllic southern town with a dark secret is timely, intense, and terrifyingly good." - J T Ellison
"Troubled waters rise slow, and dark, and sneaky in Gothictown... Prepare to breaststroke your way through Carpenter's latest feat to where the floodwaters recede, revealing an utterly satisfying conclusion." - Robert Gwaltney
"The Queen of Southern Gothic dominates in this unputdownable feast in which deeply-drawn characters who inhabit a tantalizingly secretive southern town play a role in deadly secrets that link back to the past. Haunting, atmospheric, sexy, wildly vivid, original, and entrancing, Gothictown proves Carpenter is the master of balancing all the ingredients for a reader's sleepless night of turning the pages." - Shannon Kirk
"A high-energy read that effortlessly reinvents the modern Gothic while delivering all the elements that make the genre so captivating: a haunting atmosphere, a dark legacy, a determined heroine and a whisper of horror. I love the Gothic and I love Gothictown." - Jayne Ann Krentz
"Inviting and atmospheric, this engrossing tale of a charming town hiding a chilling past is southern gothic at its best. Carpenter expertly turns up the heat as a seductive offer turns out too good to be true and dark secrets come to light, raising the temperature until the plot boils over. I was hooked from the very beginning!" - Katherine Wood
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Used availability for Emily Carpenter's Gothictown