Smothermoss

In 1980s Appalachia, life isn’t easy for Sheila. She takes care of her great-aunt, the garden and home, and the rabbits; and forages for mushrooms in the forest, all while her mother works back-breaking shifts at the nearby asylum. But it’s her peculiar little sister, Angie, who worries her the most. Angie is obsessed with nuclear war, Rambo, a Russian invasion of their community, and the ominous, tarot-like cards she creates that somehow speak to her.

As if all that weren’t enough, Sheila feels an inexplicable weight around her neck. Is it the ancient and strange mountain they live on that casts its shadow on her, or something or someone else unknown? Unseen?

When a pair of female hikers are brutally murdered on the Appalachian Trail, Sheila and Angie find themselves drawn inexorably into the hunt for the killer. As the ever-present threat of violence looms larger, the mountain might be the only thing that can save them from the darkness that threatens to consume their home and their community.

Unsettling, propulsive, and chillingly atmospheric, Alisa Alering’s debut novel, Smothermoss, opens a hidden door into a world caught between rural gothic and fairytale, inviting the reader to renegotiate what is seen and unseen, what is real and what is haunted.