like the day before, and the day before that. Everything seems normal
– at least on the surface; like an idyllic, pastoral painting; the
sky dyed with pastels of blue and white, the ground carpeted with
dark green fescue and bluegrass, a clapboard farmhouse resting on top
of a hill, sugar maples, oaks and Eastern red cedars providing
welcome shade from the heat of a Tennessee summer sun. You can almost
see moving images of little children running barefoot through the
grass; an era before tweeting and texting and the triumph of
technology over all.
fresh enough to lull a casual observer into believing it the benign
keeper of hey for cattle and shelter for goats. A closer look reveals
the color to be not barn red, but blood red.
not right about it. Some say it is unnatural. Some say it’s obscene
and evil. But they don’t say such things out loud, for the owner of
the barn is Sheldon Sprigg, a well-respected man of the cloth, the
preacher at Hare’s Corner Church of God Incarnate. Sheldon is the
most upright man in these parts. He keeps the law religiously, and
makes sure his wife and teenaged daughter do too. After all, to obey
is better than sacrifice.
Philosophy at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
His undergraduate degree (in Biblical languages) is from David
Lipscomb University. He also holds the Master of Theology from
Harding University Graduate School of Religion, the Master of Arts
(in Religion) from Vanderbilt University, and the Ph.D. in philosophy
from The University of Georgia. Michael has twenty articles in
scholarly journals, nine book chapters, six encyclopedia articles,
six book reviews, and he co-edited the book, “Beyond Brain
Death: The Case Against Brain Based Criteria for Human Death,”
which was published in 2000 by Kluwer Academic Publishers. He also
has over fifty scholarly presentations, including one presented at
the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at The Vatican in 2005. Michael is
a 2007 graduate of The Writers Loft at Middle Tennessee State
University and a 2007 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop at St.
Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. His poetry has been
published in Journal of the American Medical Association, Iodine
Poetry Journal, Poems & Plays, and other literary journals. His
poetry chapbook, “From Field to Thicket,” won the 2006 Mary
Belle Campbell Poetry Book Award of the North Carolina Writers
Network. His creative nonfiction essay, “Haunted,” won the
Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Award, also sponsored by the North
Carolina Writers Network. Besides reading and writing, he enjoys
vegetable gardening, canning, and ghost investigations. He and his
wife, Karen, live with their three cats, Frodo, Rosie, and Pippin, in
Linden, North Carolina.
In the picturesque Appalachian foothills in Tennessee, we find a little farmhouse and barn that looks like it could be in a picture. But there is something wrong with this place, something wrong with the barn. The locals know and feel it but don’t dare voice t to Sheldon Sprigg, the local preacher. The barn is his and his is being guided to do the lords work. But which lord?
This book is downright creepy. A story of a preacher that is taking guidance from a dark entity and never questioning those orders, even when they say his daughter is bad and needs to be punished. I man that thinks of murder and is determined to keep those in his house under an iron thumb. Then there is the barn with its supernatural origins and evil intent.
This is an amazing horror story that had me creeped out numerous times. I had an idea what might happen but I was lead into the story like a lamb to the slaughter. Not everything that looks perfect it, remember, Lucifer was the most beautiful of the angels.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. I voluntarily chose to read and post an honest review.
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Oh you know when a horror takes place in the Apalachias it’s going to be good. Great review Jess!
Thanks! It is a great story!!
Thank you for the review! I’m glad you like the book. I’m a rural Tennessean to the core, even though I live in North Carolina now.
You are very welcome. Thank you for the chills down my spine!!