we don’t go there
Everybody believes, from the Prime Minister to the barman. And the things people do . . . you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
we don’t go there is available to agents and publishers
Complete at 78,000 words, this exotic horror will rest nicely on bookstore shelves between the where-am-I fright of Tananarive Due’s Reformatory and the folk-scares of T. Kingfisher’s What Feasts at Night. If Deliverance and Rosemary’s Baby spent a chilling night in a tent beneath the forest canopy, the progeny would be my novel.
In the hinterlands of 1970s Papua New Guinea, mysticism is science, and witchcraft is the whispered religion. For researchers Claire and Sam Barker—intoxicated with their young marriage, ambitious, naïve—an expedition here is the path to academic greatness. That is, until Claire goes where no one goes.
Beckoned by an unseen force to a forbidden clearing deep in the forest, she rouses ancient spirits. When a landslide strikes, it’s not God’s work or Mother Nature’s. A grieving widow points at Claire, crying “witch.”
Trapped in a village aflame with fear and suspicion, Claire and Sam must confront a terrible truth: it doesn’t matter if they don’t believe in witches—everyone else does. And far more is at stake than their faith in science or their flesh-and-bone bodies. Because a true sorcerer is quietly approaching. And he wants souls.
This novel has been read for sensitivity by three Papua New Guineans and professionally edited. I have worked with Indigenous communities for twenty years, including in PNG. I speak the language and have endeavored to share the beauty and magic of this place and its people, using horror to reflect on the universal human emotions of conviction, compassion, loyalty, and fear. I belong to the Horror Writers Association and the Pitch to Published writing community..