This blog post introduces my forthcoming novel: “3 Kidnapped, 3 Siblings, 3 Furies,” to be published by amazon.com. I use the horror genre to tackle sibling abuse in this new novel, with the Three Furies from the Greek Myths forcing the abuse out into the open.
The novel begins as follows:
“It was the Fall of 2010. Vrayboro, then as now, is a town with a population of about 5,000. It is in the eastern part of Texas, United States, in the Piney Woods, a region known for its dense woodlands. This forest surrounds Vrayboro. The nearest neighboring town is twenty miles away. The inhabitants are mainly middle class, but a few trailer parks are home to low-income people. Vrayboro has K-12 schools, a small police force, a hospital, and some gifted local doctors for physical and psychological needs. Some of the children are home-schooled. There are more churches in Vrayboro than the local population can support. The busiest church is the Catholic Church, with its Father Lewis renowned for his inspiring sermons, attracting non-Catholics. Vrayboro has a supermarket, several restaurants, some cafes, and a movie theater. A small live theater is run by enthusiastic volunteers and supported by Vrayboro’s inhabitants. There usually isn’t an empty seat in the theater at performances. Vrayboro has enough services that its inhabitants can mostly lead their lives without leaving the town. The population is close-knit, and the small business owners lobby for the population to use its services rather than go outside Vrayboro for them.
Vrayboro first became uneasy when the news spread that Sebastian Ward hadn’t returned home from school. He was one of the rising stars of their small town. He made excellent grades at Vrayboro’s one high school and was the best athlete in his age group there. He volunteered for several charities. He was handsome and already breaking hearts among the teenage girls at his school. Someone like Sebastian doesn’t go missing for any other reason than foul play—someone as worshipped by the town as Sebastian has no reason to run away.”
At the same time, two other teenagers are kidnapped, Mary Bell and Fred McCarthy. It eventually becomes clear that the kidnappers are The Three Furies from the Greek Myths, who demand confessions from the siblings of the kidnapped teens. These confessions revolve around sibling abuse by the kidnapped teens of a younger sibling in their family.
The novel treats the issue of sibling abuse. Such abuse is an epidemic in the United States as it is elsewhere. We bring to bear the full horror of mythical punishment to extract the information from the families concerned.