May the Dead Keep You

Catie East loves the redwood forest that surrounds her family's unusual historic home, the Heights. She would rather be among the trees than around people, whom she finds complicated. Her solitude is interrupted when a scientist and his son move into the estate's cottage to study the woods.

The boy catches her eye. Then a dead woodpecker comes back to life in his hands, and she falls for him.

Necromancy is only one of the odd things happening on the estate. Catie sees an unfamiliar face in the mirror, blood on the floors and eyes in the wallpaper. The men around her, the boy she liked included, turn possessive, frightening and violent.

As the dark history of the Heights comes to light, Catie learns that the house she loves is soaked in pain that is not hers. It will corrupt her and the people near her all the same unless she can stop it.

This is gothic horror with a haunted house at its center. It deals with generational trauma and with breaking cycles of abuse. The tone is frightening and heavy, with some hope running through it.