Bliss House: A Novel

Death never did come quietly for Bliss House . . . and now a mother and daughter have become entwined in the secrets hidden within its walls. Amidst the lush farmland and orchards in Old Gate, Virginia, stands the magnificent Bliss House. Built in 1878 as a country retreat, Bliss House is impressive, historic, and inexplicably mysterious. Decades of strange occurrences, disappearances and deaths have plagued the house, yet it remains vibrant. And very much alive. Rainey Bliss Adams desperately needed a new start when she and her daughter Ariel relocated from St. Louis to Old Gate and settled into the house where the Bliss family had lived for over a century. Rainey’s husband had been killed in a freak explosion that left her 14 year-old daughter Ariel scarred and disfigured. At the grand housewarming party, Bliss House begins to reveal itself again. Ariel sees haunting visions: the ghost of her father, and the ghost of a woman being pushed to her death off of an upper floor balcony, beneath an exquisite dome of painted stars. And then there is a death the night of the party. Who is the murderer in the midst of this small town? And who killed the woman in Ariel's visions? But Bliss House is loath to reveal its secrets, as are the good folks of Old Gate.

From Booklist

After the explosion at her St. Louis home—leaving her husband dead and her 14-year-old daughter, Ariel, disfigured—Rainey Adams wants a fresh start. So she buys Bliss House, her ancestral, nineteenth-century Virginia country home, despite its murderous reputation. Here Rainey feels she’s come home, while Ariel senses her father’s presence and sees her healing accelerating. But the aftermath of a gala housewarming party shatters the sense of well-being: during the night, Ariel sees a ghostly woman take a deadly fall, and in the morning Rainey finds the body of her real-estate agent in the hallway. A near-lethal assault and a related murder follow, as Ariel explores the house and becomes more affected by it. Woven through this narration is the generation-old story of a woman’s imprisonment in a secluded underground chamber of the house, a stunning account that a member of the Bliss family finally feels compelled to reveal to Rainey. Benedict combines the supernatural with the all-too-real, peopling the haunted-house milieu with psychopaths and adding elements of guilt and betrayal for an engrossing and suspenseful read. --Michele Leber

and fills her novel with rich Virginia detail. Unabashedly dark and inevitably addictive. A dream (or would that be a delicious nightmare?) come true for fans of suspense fiction.” - The Richmond Times Dispatch

“A classic murder mystery, one in which she skillfully and inextricably links the 'haints' and the homicides

an intelligent haunted house story with twists and turns. Laura Benedict is an author to watch. Bliss House edges Benedict firmly into Shirley Jackson territory with this rich, evocative novel about the power of blood to corrupt.” - Carolyn Haines, winner of the Harper Lee Award, author of THE DARKLING and THE SEEKER (writing as R. B. Chesterton)

“I've longed for this book

About the Author

Laura Benedict is the author of the dark suspense novels BLISS HOUSE (Pegasus Crime), DEVIL'S OVEN, a modern Frankenstein tale, ISABELLA MOON, and CALLING MR. LONELY HEARTS (Ballantine). Her work has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, PANK, and numerous anthologies like Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads (Oceanview), and Slices of Flesh (Dark Moon Books). She originated and edited the Surreal South Anthology of Short Fiction Series with her husband, Pinckney Benedict, and edited Feeding Kate, a charity anthology, for their press, Gallowstree Press. A Cincinnati, Ohio native, Laura grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and claims both as hometowns. She currently lives with her family in the southern wilds of a Midwestern state, surrounded by bobcats, coyotes, and other less picturesque predators. Find out more, enter her monthly contests, and follow her blog at laurabenedict.com

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