"Garden of Darkness"

"Anne Frasier's novels have spanned the genres of mystery, thriller, paranormal, science fiction, and horror. Garden of Darkness continues a dark tale started in Pale Immortal of a spooky Wisconsin town. In Before I Wake, a secret government medical experiment goes wrong. Play Dead plays out amid the voodoo scene in Savannah, Georgia. Sleep Tight, a traditional police procedural, is set in Minneapolis."

Frasier applied the Page 69 Test to the newly released Garden of Darkness and reported the following:

Wow. This was an interesting page 69 test. It’s one complete scene that I think does an excellent job capturing the book. The brief scene conveys the haunting of Tuonela, and the way the past and the dead reach out to the living – and the living reach back.

Page 69, Garden of Darkness:

Gloria Raymond woke up, tossed back the covers, and got out of bed. Without putting on shoes or a coat, without pulling up her hair or even covering it with a hat, she walked out the front door, then down the sidewalk to the center of the street.

A mile took her through the park and through vacant lots and woodland, across railroads tracks and broken glass. Feeling no pain, her feet cut and bleeding enough to leave footprints, she walked to the levee and climbed the chain-link fence that had been put up last year when a three-year-old drowned. Her pink cotton nightgown snagged and ripped as she dropped to the other side.

Even though she would be seventy-five next month, she jumped nimbly to the bobbing dock and walked to the end that jutted over the Wisconsin River.

The moon reflected off the surface.

A full moon, round like a face. The water rippled, creating a pretty, repeating design that was mesmerizing.

Under the surface of the water Gloria saw her husband smiling up at her, his eyes wide open. He reached for her hand, and she reached back….

Read the prologue to Garden of Darkness, and learn more about the author and her books at Anne Frasier's website and her blog.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue