(This excerpt is inspired by my novel Welcome to Lakewood, a work in progress soon to be on wattpad!:)

It was the dream family destination. It was the idyllic ocean-side scene where a writer could find their muse. It was the ultimate vacation getaway, a marriage’s saving grace.

It was Lakewood.

The town was gorgeous and boasted everything Marianne and her husband Dorian sought after. Right next to the ocean, a calm surface of deep indigo, and bordering a lush and lavish forest, the most striking colors of hunter green and emerald shining in the sun.

As the couple pulled up to their new home Marianne’s breath was stolen. She had watery eyes when she turned to her husband, clearly expecting them to share in this emotional new chapter together. The look she saw on Dorian’s face was dark. The sun was out and making Marianne’s caramel skin glow, but Dorian’s ivory complexion was cast in a daunting shadow. She felt immediately withered by him, even though as he turned to look at her the gloom had instantly vanished. He smiled.

“It’s great isn’t it? It’s like from a storybook!” His enthusiasm seemed to match her own. Did she just imagine that horrible, demented look in her sweet husband’s eyes? She wiped her suddenly sweaty forehead and gazed forward.

The lane was overgrown with trees that looked fluffy with yellow and orange leaves, a light breeze ruffled them like soft feathers. Old-fashioned street lamps, authentic and vintage, lined the smooth and even paved cobblestone walkways on either side of the road, a warm oil flame flickering inside the glass tubes.

Dorian parked their expensive BMW in a driveway of a small manor. The spires of the three towers soaring were paned in solar, the windows themselves were reflecting beautiful mosaic stained glass. It truly was out of a storybook, a fantasy where a lowly servant girl comes to finally live at the castle. Marianne felt like a princess.

The fantasy was shattered like taking a hammer to glass, the pieces falling away. Marianne felt a distinct feeling of something horrible creeping up her spine. She turned instinctively towards a shuttered house next door to their right. A curtain fluttered rapidly, a shadow retreated into darkness. The whole house was grand as was all the others on this block, but something about it’s rundown yard with weeds taking command over all else was haunting, all the windows were dusty and dirty and surely brought in no light with their current state and the fact that most of them were curtained with blackout drapes.

And then the neighbor, watching them surreptitiously, instead of greeting them at the street with cookies and baskets of candles as is being done now with all the others.

No matter, thought Marianne. It’s not like anyone knows who she really is, where she came from, why she married Dorian after only six months of dating and swept him away from his family and friends to another state. No one knows anything about her.

But, as she doesn’t realize but will soon come to understand, is that everyone knows everyone in Lakewood. The butcher is neighbors with the pharmacist, and the delivery driver goes to the same little cafe by the post office that his daughters schoolteacher frequents. It’s all friendly smiles and neighborly favors, which is why Marianne chose this particular small town with its bright, happy occupants. She is sure that no one here would dig into her muddy past, though how could they? She’s done a hell of a job burying her secrets.

Welcome to Lakewood, Marianne, a little town where everyone knows everyone… and all their dirty, buried little secrets.

(Stay tuned for more!)