Recluse Clare Benning, a wildlife veterinary specialist,
receives a panic call from her neighbor. She has discovered
a poisonous snake on her sleeping infant. Thus begins the
worst week in Clare's life. Suddenly, in her quiet English
village there is an epidemic of snakes. One man dies from
snakebite, but the venom in his blood shows a great deal
more toxin than one snake could produce. A family awakens
to find dozens of snakes in their house. With Clare's
reputation concerning reptiles, she becomes a reluctant and
wary detective trying to discover who is using snakes to
terrorize the village.
Battling her own demons over her facial disfigurement,
Clare summons the courage to work with an attractive
policeman. Their interaction takes her out of her comfort
zone as she attempts to cope with people. As she pokes into
the village's history, Clare uncovers disturbing secrets --
a mysterious fire in a church 50 years ago, an old rundown
house and elderly villagers hiding the truth about a
strange family who inhabited the house.
As Clare probes deeper, she needs all the survival skills
she learned to deal with cruelty. Someone wants to stop her
and framing her for murder sets the police on her. Their
relentless barrage of questions accelerates her crisis of
loss of faith and hope.
AWAKENING is an extraordinary, suspenseful mystery with
multiple threads weaving between folk lore, mysticism and
true evil. The perils engulfing the damaged Clare make it a
true page-turner. In addition, Ms. Bolton shows even the
most snake-phobic the innate beauty of snakes.
Clara Benning, a veterinary surgeon in charge of a
wildlife hospital in a small English village, is young and
intelligent, but nearly a recluse. Disfigured by a
childhood accident, she generally prefers the company of
animals to people. But when a local man dies following a
supposed snakebite, Clara’s expertise is needed. She’s
chilled to learn that the victim’s postmortem shows a
higher concentration of venom than could ever be found in
a single snake—and that therefore the killer must be
human.
Assisted by a soft-spoken neighbor and an
eccentric reptile expert, Clara unravels sinister links to
an abandoned house, an ancient ritual, and a fifty-year-
old tragedy that has left the survivors secretive. But for
someone the truth must remain buried in the past—even if
they have to kill to keep it
there.
Awakening is a disturbing tale of
dark secrets and insidious rituals that will have readers
unable to stop for a breath until they’ve reach the
stunning climax of this extraordinary read from the author
of the acclaimed debut novel Sacrifice.
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