I was very impressed with this debut southern gothic/paranormal mystery. It's set in Louisiana, which is the very best place in the whole of the USA for gothic aura. Those bayous can be darned spooky! There is a great cast of characters, rich detail, excellent pacing, and a twist that caught me completely off guard.

The rich Deveau family owns a big ol' mansion in the bayous, called Evangeline. The Deveaus suffered a tragedy 30 years ago when their small son, Gabriel, disappeared without a trace. Charlotte "Charlie" Cates is a young, recently bereaved mother from Connecticut; after her son died she began having strange "dreams" or visions of children in trouble. She comes to Evangeline to write about Gabriel's disappearance, and she has it in her mind that maybe her dreams can help her figure out what happened to him. Mama Deveau is on her deathbed and the remaining Deveau children are all rather unpleasant, greedy, and have lots of other "issues," and Charlie immediately falls right in the middle of all the nasty family secrets and squabbles. Oh, and there's a hunky Texan working at Evangeline...I won't say any more about him. ;-) There you have it, all the ingredients for a delicious gothic mystery!

I enjoyed the book so much that I went to the author's Goodreads page, something I don't usually do. I learned this is the first of a planned "Charlie Cates" trilogy. Book 2, [b:The Shimmering Road|28248317|The Shimmering Road|Hester Young|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1479156265s/28248317.jpg|48284078], was released in February of this year. Since Ms. Young's first book was so wonderful, the second went immediately on my to-read shelf.

Read it and enjoy!