Title: Spine Chilling
Author: Michelle Godard-Richer
Genre: Horror Thriller
Book Blurb:
Don’t let the devil escape the pages.Peter McFadden’s life is coming to an end, but he isn’t ready to leave this world and his killing ways behind. His spirit lingers inside his favorite vintage book, tethering him to this world while he waits for his next victim.Davis Shetland discovers an expensive first edition he desperately wants in the antique section of his neighborhood bookstore. Once he places the book on his shelf at home, the nightmare begins.He awakens covered in blood, with no memory of what happened, only to learn that his girlfriend’s sister - a woman he doesn’t like - was murdered the previous night.Soon, Davis realizes that the cost of the book will not be the highest price he’ll have to pay.
Excerpt:
Esme Engelbert glanced around her dead father’s cluttered bedroom and groaned. The looming task of emptying his entire house, combined with the grief of her loss, sucked every drop of her energy dry.
“Luce, he has so much stuff. This is going to take forever.” She opened the closet. A musty version of body odor escaped the confines of the small space, and she wrinkled her nose. “Look at all those old clothes! He has four garbage bags full in here and they stink. He never got rid of anything.”
Her sister Lucy shrugged. “Well, you could pay somebody to get rid of all Dad’s crap. I don’t think there’s enough in his savings to cover more than his cremation though.”
“Those junk removal services aren’t cheap. I don’t have the money. Do you?”
“I do. But I don’t want to spend a dime on that worthless sack. He treated us and Mom like garbage. I’ll never forget how sick Mom got during her chemo, and he wouldn’t stop his stupid camping trips to stay home and take care of us. I was never prouder of Mom than I was when she divorced his ass.”
Esme shoved down her irritation at her sister’s callous behavior. “It’s not right to speak ill of the dead. No one’s perfect. Dad tried to be nice towards the end.”
Caw!
Esme jumped and turned to face her father’s pet crow perched in the giant cage standing in the corner of the room. “Sweet Jesus, that bird scared the crap out of me.”
The crow met her gaze with his soulless, beady eyes. “Razzhole!”
Lucy narrowed her eyes at the bird. “Did he call you an asshole? I’ll make you a deal. I’ll foot the bill for the junk removal, but you have to take Ezekiel home with you.”
“Ah, about that. My building doesn’t allow pets. He’s a predator. I bet if we let him loose outside, he’ll be fine on his own. Dad used to let him loose in the woods all the time.”
“Whatever. But you let him out of the cage.”
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this. Look at those mean, beady eyes.” Esme opened the bedroom window and removed the screen. She took a shuddering breath and rested her hand on the opening of the cage. “Ezekiel, you’re free. Please don’t attack us. Just go find mice to eat or something.” Esme opened the cage, then curled into a ball on the ground with her arms covering her head.
Lucy said, “You’re such a coward, Esme. It’s just a pet bird.”
Caw!
Big wings flapped overhead. Esme wanted to know where Ezekiel was, but she also didn’t want her eyes pecked out.
“Ouch!” Lucy screamed. “You’re the asshole!”
Esme lifted her head.
A line of blood trickled from Lucy’s forehead onto her cheek. She swung a lamp at Ezekiel’s head.
The bird dodged the lamp and flew out the window.
Lucy slammed the window shut. “Some help you are. You’re such a wimp.”
Esme swallowed the response that came to mind. Or maybe I’m just smarter than you. She grabbed a shirt off a chair and ran over to her sister. “It doesn’t look bad. It’s a tiny gash. You won’t need stitches.” She pressed the fabric against the wound. The bleeding had already slowed.
Lucy held the shirt in place. “Go find me a bandage. Then we’ll see if there’s anything valuable in this heap.”
Esme rolled her eyes as she crossed the hall to the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet.
What a bitch!
Would it hurt Lucy to say please once in a while? She came across a box with a single bandage left in it. She opened it and positioned it on Lucy’s forehead. “I bet his book collection is worth something. Some of his first editions are antique.”
“Ooh, probably. And he always kept a gun under the bed. That would be worth money.” Lucy crouched on the floor and lifted the comforter.
Esme kneeled beside her sister and angled the flashlight on her phone into the dark space beneath the box spring. The beam illuminated two boxes. A black metal box and a big shoe box.
Lucy pulled the boxes out. “If he had anything valuable in this room it would be inside these.” She tugged the metal box towards her and lifted the latches. “Yep, this is his old Colt. We’ll take this with us. What’s in that one?”
With an unexplainable sense of unease lifting the hair on the back of her neck, Esme pulled the shoe box towards her and flipped it open. “This is weird.” She picked up a bundle of cards, with a woman’s driver’s license on top, held together by an elastic band. She tugged the elastic off and spread what turned out to be a bunch of driver’s licenses across the carpet. They all belonged to young women. “What the hell, Luce? Why would he have these?”
“I don’t know. I’ll google the names.” Lucy’s fingers flew across her iPhone. Her skin turned clammy, and her hands shook.
“What’s wrong, Luce?”
“Ohmigod. I’ve searched three of the names so far, and they were all murdered by the Colorado Strangler. And the police still haven’t caught him. But that still doesn’t explain why Dad has these.” Lucy picked up a small jewelry box, the only other thing left in the shoe box. “I wonder what’s in here.”
Esme’s stomach twisted into a tight knot as her brain worked through the shock of their discovery and arrived at a horrific conclusion. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you.”
“Why not?” Lucy opened the box, then dropped it, and covered her mouth.
The box landed on its side and a mound of gleaming white teeth spilled out all over the carpet. Almost as if their father had polished each tooth individually after…he yanked them out of someone’s mouth.
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What makes your featured book a must-read?
Spine Chilling a spooky possession story, perfect for the Halloween season.
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Open Internationally.
Runs October 25 – November 3, 2024.
Winner will be drawn on November 4, 2024.
Author Biography:
Michelle Godard-Richer is a multi-award-winning and Amazon bestselling author of eight books, including Into The Fog and The Fatal Series. She also has an Honours Degree in Criminology from the University of Ottawa and was named Best Canada Author of the Year by N.N. Light’s Book Heaven.
Her fascination with crime and human behavior, combined with a lifelong passion for the written word, led her to realize a childhood dream of becoming an author. She enjoys crafting strong protagonists and diabolical villains with realistic and believable characteristics while making their lives as complicated and dangerous as possible.
When she isn’t writing, you’ll find her in the garden or with her nose in a book. She lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta with her husband, two children, four dogs, and a cat.
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