The Birthing House: A Novel

A chilling ghost story that is also a tale of exquisite psychological suspense The Birthing House marks the debut of a writer whose first novel is a terrifying tour de force.. Conrad and Joanna Harrison a young couple from Los Angeles attempt to save their marriage by leaving the pressures of the city to start anew in a quiet rural setting. They buy a Victorian mansion that once served as a haven for unwed mothers called a birthing house. One day when Joanna is away the previous owner visits Conrad to bequeath a vital piece of the houses historic heritage a photo album that he claims belongs to the house. Thumbing through the old sepia-colored photographs of midwives and fearful unhappily pregnant girls in their starched nineteenth-century dresses Conrad is suddenly chilled to the bone: staring back at him with a countenance of hatred and rage is the image of his own wife….. Thus begins a story of possession sexual obsession and ultimately murder as a centuries-old crime is reenacted in the present turning Conrad and Joannas American dream into a relentless nightmare.