“Write what you know...”
Mark Twain said it first, and well-meaning English teachers and critique partners have repeated it. But, with my wild imagination, it’s not advice I’ve had to take very often until this book, The House by the Cemetery. And no, I did not grow up in a funeral home situated next to a cemetery, but I spent some time hanging out in a cemetery when I was a teenager. My friends and I would dare ourselves to meet there after dark, certain that we would see ghosts rising from their graves. As a Halloween baby, I was naturally obsessed with the macabre and probably had a morbid fascination with death. Or maybe I was just an average teenager in the eighties.
I also knew a real live grave digger who used to dig the graves by hand before there was special equipment to do it. He was quite the character, too. Tall and thin, he looked like a skeleton, and he had a glass eye and an ornery disposition. But he also had a soft spot for me for some reason. I met him when I worked weekends as a waitress in the local coffee shop, and a friend and I wound up cleaning his house for him. And even though he’s been gone a long time, he’s never left my mind. Other people were afraid of him when he was alive, so I can only imagine how they would feel if he was still walking the grounds of the cemetery where he used to work, carrying a lantern in one hand and swinging a shovel with the other. This is the image that compelled me to write THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY.
The grave digger is the only one of the characters I based on a real person, but as a member of a very big family, writing the dynamics of the heirs of Gregory Gold was very easy for me. I definitely know how big families are, and the grandmother-mother-daughter-granddaughter relationships were very easy for me to write, too. I was very close to my mother and grandmother who were the avid readers that inspired me to be an avid reader as well and to become a writer. I also have two daughters of my own, so one of my favorite descriptions of this book is Gothic Gilmore Girls. I think it has that vibe as well as the Six Feet Under meets Succession. But at its heart, it’s about family and the grave digger and murder, of course. Since I write so many murder mysteries, maybe it’s good that I don’t often take Mark Twain’s advice.
Six Feet Under meets Succession with a gothic twist after the suspicious death of a midwestern funeral home empire’s wealthy patriarch in New York Times bestselling author Lisa Childs’ dark, twisty, horror-tinged new series for readers of Megan Collins, Samantha Downing, Stacy Willingham, and Rachel Hawkins.
In Gold Creek, Michigan, legend has that the ghost of a local grave digger still walks the cemetery, swinging his shovel, looking for his next victim to bury. But when the town’s wealthy undertaker dies, his estranged daughter must contend with the ghosts that haunt her own family . . .
After she left home at seventeen, River Gold swore she would never return to Gold Creek. Growing up at the Gold Funeral Home and Memorial Gardens was a nightmare. Classmates constantly teased her for being part of the “Ghoul” family, while her own family denied that she was actually a Gold. Her father, undertaker Gregory Gold, certainly never acted like a father. He was far more interested in profiting off other people’s tragedies. But now Gregory has died. And River has surrendered to the pleas of her mother, Fiona, that she come back for his funeral.
But the mourning period is cut short when it’s revealed that Gregory died of poisoning—and Fiona is the number one suspect in his murder. Clearly, Fiona, his third wife and the funeral home’s cosmetologist, is being framed. There are plenty of more likely suspects, and River is determined to prove her mother’s innocence. That she’ll have to work with the sheriff—her high school enemy—is a small price to pay.
With a fortune at stake, River is sure the killer lies among Gregory’s first two wives, their children, and grandchildren. Yet soon, other discoveries will be made, and longstanding secrets unearthed. But when more people are murdered, the danger hits closer to home than River imagined possible. Drawn back into the lives—and lies—of the Golds—she’ll have to use her every resource to keep herself, and her loved ones, safe.
Thriller Serial Killer | Thriller Psychological [Kensington, On Sale: August 20, 2024, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781496748997 / eISBN: 9781496749000]
Lisa Childs is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than eighty-five novels. She’s been published in 20 countries and has appeared on the Publisher’s Weekly, Barnes & Noble and Nielsen Top 100 bestseller lists. Lisa was born on Halloween which might have fated her predilection for spinning dark and twisty stories. In addition to suspense, she also writes contemporary romance, paranormal and women’s fiction.
Lisa is an avid reader, a less avid runner, and a busy wife, mom and bonus mom with a big, boisterous family.
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