Writing Retreat

Alex has been stuck on her second novel for two years when an invitation arrives from Roza Vallo, the reclusive horror writer she has idolized since college. Roza is hosting five writers for a month at her estate. One of them is Wren, the friend whose falling-out with Alex froze her writing years ago.

At Blackbriar, cut off from cell service and the internet, Roza sets the real terms. Each writer has thirty days to finish a full manuscript, and the best one wins a seven-figure publishing deal. The mansion carries its own history. A wealthy owner and the wife he called a medium both died there after she claimed to channel a demon named Lamia.

Wren's old cruelty returns almost as soon as they arrive. Strange dreams and sounds in the halls unsettle the group. When a snowstorm seals off the estate and one of the writers disappears, Alex has to decide whether Blackbriar's past is reaching into the present or whether someone beside her wants her gone.

This is Julia Bartz's first novel, a fast paced psychological horror story that turns old friendship and literary ambition into rivalry. It borrows the snowbound, cut off haunted house setup of classic gothic fiction and adds a real occult mystery underneath the writers' contest.