Wild Fell: A Ghost Story

For Jameson Browning, Wild Fell, a turn-of-the-century mansion on an island in Devil's Lake, combines easy access to the institute where his father is dying from Alzheimer's with glorious isolation from a world that has too often given him bullying, broken relationships and sudden loss. Only after taking possession of the property does Browning learn of Wild Fell's dark reputation, a sinister history reaching back across a century to the days when a brutal, perverse millionaire preyed on his own daughter and dark magic that has tied Browning to a vengeful, possessive specter longer than he can suspect. Trapped alone, unable to trust the evidence of his senses or even his memory, Browning must somehow come to grips with his spectral host or become the latest victim. A modern take on Gothic ghost stories, Rowe's (Enter, Night) second novel replaces the isolated heroines of such tales with an equally isolated, socially estranged man and adds such unsavory details as modern audiences might find diverting. From the young boy whose gender identity appears fluid to the adult who finds every secure foundation eroded away from under him, the novel is artfully constructed, a tale as deliberate and inexorable as a glacier. Agent: Sam Hiyate, The Rights Factory. (Dec.)