Black is a novel exploring themes of small-town horror and nightmares half hidden in plain sight.
In 1992, a girl from the wrong part of the county goes missing after a party . . . and the town of Ithaca doesn’t much care, leaving her disappearance ignored and barely investigated. Although sixteen-year-old Shae Hailey, a classmate of the girl’s, wonders why no one seems to want to find her, she has enough problems navigating her parents’ religious fundamentalism and draconian rules, not to mention her recent casting in Ithaca High School’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. When two boys enter her life, notorious player Danny Grimes and the weird, brooding, potentially dangerous Jesse Cannon, she finds herself caught between her brewing desperation for independence and acceptance, and the hatred and cruelty the upstanding Right-Siders of the community heap upon those who don’t get in line.
Lurking in the shadows though is a presence, an entity created from chaos, watching and waiting for its chance to claim what it wants and gain power over its eternal opponent. Called into reality by the unwitting ritual of a boy desperate for belonging, given form by the collective energy of the play’s cast, the presence makes its move. After so long, it has finally found what was hidden from it, what will ultimately give it victory. Shae is the key. And Shae will set it free.
Coming in 2023 to bookstores and Amazon.