Laura Benedict

Amidst lush farmland in Old Gate, Virginia, stands the magnificent Bliss House. Built in 1878, Bliss House is impressive, historic, and inexplicably mysterious. Rainey Bliss Adams needed a new start when she and her daughter Ariel relocated from St. Louis to Old Gate and settled into the Bliss house. Rainey's husband had been killed in a freak explosion that left her young daughter Ariel scarred and disfigured. At the grand housewarming party, Bliss...

Eleven celebrated short stories-from the darkly criminal to the twisted depths of the supernatural-by the writer whose work USA Today Bestselling writer Alison Gaylin called "Absorbing, addictive, and chilling." A Paler Shade of Death-Tragedy has destroyed Becca's marriage and driven her to live among strangers. Her unraveling sanity exposes the truth of her past and deadly state of mind. (Edgar Short Story Award nomination) Witches, All – A has-been...

"The Fall of 1957 in southern Virginia was a seemingly idyllic, even prosperous time. A young housewife, Charlotte Bliss, lives with her husband, Hasbrouck Preston "Press" Bliss and their two young children, Eva Grace and Michael, in the gorgeous Bliss family home. On the surface, theirs seems a calm, picturesque life, but soon tragedy befalls them -- a series of shocking deaths, with apparently simple explanations. But nothing is simple if Bliss...