Eighteen years ago, an infant Jesse Calloway was found wailing on the bank of a river, his mother dead beside him. The mystery of her death has haunted him all his life, and despite every effort, he has never been able to uncover the truth.

Now someone is promising him answers. An anonymous source claims that they’ll tell him everything. But only if he returns to the hometown he swore he’d left in the rearview.

But in Blacknot, North Carolina, nothing is as it seems. It’s a town that buries its secrets deep. Jesse’s relentless investigation garners attention from intimidating locals, including his dangerous ex-boyfriend. And he’ll soon discover that this backwater town hides a volatile and haunting place on its desolate edge.

Red Rabbit Ghost by Jen Julian is haunting and immersive, the kind of story that you inhale in deep gulps, reading long into the night. From the beginning, I found myself intrigued by Jesse and Alice each as well as the memorable secondary characters that populate Blacknot. The intrigue and death that plays out against supernatural elements heighten the tension as well as the darkness. 

The novel is full of strange but also beautiful moments as Jesse must find a way to either the truth or learn to let go of his past. Both Jesse and Alice are haunted by troubled pasts and secrets and those strange truths will haunt the reader as you unpeel the layers of story.

If you like Southern Gothic and haunting stories with strange supernatural elements, this novel is for you. It is haunting and immersive in the voice of the novel and the voices of the characters. You never quite know what to expect and that is the beauty of the novel. 

Rating: 5 out of 5 ghosts

Tor Publishing

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