A traumatized police detective with psychic abilities fights to rescue a girl from ancient monsters before committing suicide...
By Jo Denning
“Drowning might be like going to sleep. It would be nice to sleep forever – leave everything behind in the waking world.”
Detective Saoirse Reilly commits to finding a missing child before dying by suicide. While investigating the kidnapping of Delaney Bascom, she is snared in the supernatural underbelly of Boston, Massachusetts. She will have to face her demons if she hopes to bring the girl home.
Reilly has the dubious support of Emrys Somerled, a forensic psychologist with a cellar full of secrets, and Domenico Alderisi, an impossibly youthful club owner with a bad habit. Meet these suspicious characters and more alongside Reilly as she begins to see the world for what it really is.
The blood moon is coming.
Will Reilly save the girl and find a reason to live?
Book Information
Release Date: January 21, 2021
Publisher: Leabhar & Fola Publishing House
Soft Cover: 979-8985167405; 333 pages; $14.99; E-Book, $3.99; Free Kindle Unlimited
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3mHuRSM
She pushed past him before I could make it to the door. I recognized her instantly. “Mrs. Bascom, you can’t be here,” I said as we collided.
“Where is my daughter? You are gonna let me in my own house or-” Delaney’s mother went silent when she saw it.
The blood.
We were close enough that I felt her sharp inhale. I felt more than that as she collapsed against me. Her pure horror bled into me. Cold sweat dampened my skin. My heart pounded faster and faster. I couldn’t breathe.
“Ma’am,” I choked out.
“Oh god, oh god, what happened to my baby?”
My hopes of getting some space from her and her many, many feelings were dashed. I went down with her, trying my best to stay present and support her. Her fingers burrowed into my skin as a sob disrupted her panicked rambling.
“I know. It’s okay.” I patted her back in some awkward rhythm while I babbled. I wasn’t sure if it was for my benefit or hers.
Mrs. Bascom pulled back. She looked beautiful even with her face crumpled in anguish. Her fragrance, coconut and chocolate, might have been pleasant under other circumstances. Paired with the syrupy copper in the air, it was enough to make me nauseous. The artificial light of the entryway illuminated the salt tracks on her face.
She clasped my hands in hers, and everything else faded away. The chorus of our breath was the only sound. We were one and the same. I saw Mrs. Bascom’s life through her own eyes and bore witness to the depth of her love for her daughter.
***
The nurse maneuvered my arms to cradle my newborn daughter just so. An unfamiliar emotion rushed through me—uncontainable love with an undercurrent of fear. But I felt certainty when I gazed into Hunter’s joyful eyes.
I felt fear when Delaney leapt off the swing set and pride when I realized my daughter was fearless. She would need to be brave to make it in this life. I felt rage when the doctor told us she would never go to college or work or find love. When he told us she would never be like ‘other people’ I knew he was wrong. He had to be wrong.
I felt despair when I saw Delaney’s tear-streaked terracotta skin. I told her ‘Black is beautiful, my Black is beautiful, your Black is beautiful.’
My heart overflowed when she placed in her school science fair. That was when I knew she would be alright.
Jo Denning is the author of the Saoirse Reilly series. She has spent her career as a behavioral health therapist supporting kids and teens who struggle with addiction. Jo began writing supernatural crime thrillers as a way of processing the traumatic things she has seen and heard. Her characters may be supernatural but their stories, their fear, and their pain are real. So, too, are their triumphs over impossible odds.
When she’s not writing, Jo enjoys baking, drawing, and watching trashy reality TV. She makes her home somewhere in the contiguous United States with her husband, one fluffy cat, and one barely domesticated cat.
Her latest book is the urban fantasy crime thriller, Dead Blood City: Saoirse Reilly Series Book One.
You can visit her website at www.JoDenning.com or connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, TikTok and BookBub.
