Gothictown

“Each man had seen plenty of death in his lifetime. Tuberculosis, smallpox, and scarlet fever had done their duty as colors of the herd. Childbirth and cancer had taken plenty too. But this new death the three men were witnessing, this terrible death brought by war, was a different animal altogether. Sons and brothers, nephews, and neighbors, had been taken by an enemy with a face, an enemy who should have been an ally. This war death was an affront to all the people of Juliana all the people of Juliana held dear. And, if all reports were to be believed, it was now about to encroach on their beloved town.”

In 1832, at the height of the Georgia gold rush, gold had been discovered on the banks of the Etowah River on land owned by Alfred Minette. As men flocked to work in the mine and others to supply their needs, a small town arose and Minette named it after his firstborn, a beautiful but frail girl named Juliana who had died years ago in South Carolina.

But now the Civil War was waging and while the men and boys of Juliana were off fighting, Minette forced their wives and children to work in the mines.

Union General Philip Sheridan and his troops were laying waste to all he passed through on his march to the sea and Juliana lay in his path. Destroying the town meant destroying the wealth that helped fuel the Confederate war effort and so three of the town elders, including Minette, formed a plan to save it.

And it worked. Sheridan did stop in Juliana and he and his men decimated the town’s food and livestock supplies but they didn’t discover the mine, nor the women and children trapped in the bottom of the mine when the town’s elders had the entrance dynamited with explosives. Sheridan and his troops tarried and by the time the mine was unsealed, all those inside were dead. When the surviving men returned home from the war, they were told their families had been sent away and they could now work in the lumber mill Minette was building, accept it as God’s will that their families were gone, and start anew.

It was a small sacrifice for the good of all, Minette argued, and that his daughter, Juliana, was pleased with their offering.

More than 160 years later, Billie Hope receives an offer. A former restaurateur, Billie is living in a cramped apartment with her husband and daughter in New York City when she receives an offer to purchase a dream home in historic Juliana for just $100. The offer describes the town as idyllic, and the accompanying photo shows a quaint town square straight out of a storybook as does the link to the professionally done town website. Billie sees it as part of a trend to lure people to help grow stagnant towns with new citizens. Feeling at a dead end in her life and lured by the thought of a pretty house in a lovely small town, she replies.

It’s an offer too good to be true but desperation often clouds people’s judgement and so it is with Billie and her family who make the move to Juliana.

“A small town,” she thinks. “Our own house. A perfect childhood for Mere and . . . another restaurant for me.”

Of course, it doesn’t work out that way.

Bestselling author Emily Carpenter, whose other suspense novels include Burying the Honeysuckle Girls and The Weight of Lies, weaves a frightening and compelling tale as we follow Billie and her family move from elation at what they see as a chance for a new and better life and the dawning realization that they may have embarked upon a dangerous and frightening adventure.