Trouble the Water

Wendy Vogel's Trouble the Water is a heart-wrenching gut-punch of a family drama-a tragic story of horror and loss, of guilt and redemption, of buried secrets disguised as righteousness and truth, of a river church that once thrived in its mission to keep evil outside its doors, only to realize those same doors had for decades been keeping it in. -J.H. Markert, author of The Nightmare Man

"A suspenseful, deceptively well-crafted slow burn, simmering with suppressed memories just below the surface. Generations of secret-burdened ghosts, both spectral and brutally human, populate a shifting landscape layered with time, guilt and lies. At the core of this contemporary Gothic is a complex, nuanced exploration of intimate violence, disability, fanaticism and faith." -Selene dePackh, author of The Golden Road

After her husband's death leaves her destitute, Naomi returns to the place she thought she'd escaped for good: The Covenant of Jesus' Cleansing Waters. Or what's left of it. When Naomi's father died, the cult he led died with him. The old farmhouse and a collection of decaying trailer homes on the bank of a muddy river are nearly abandoned when Naomi and her daughter Leah move in.

Determined to find a fresh start, Naomi gets a job in town. Finally she and Leah begin to feel safe, with lives of their own, and friends they can count on. But in the dark of her childhood bedroom, a faceless spirit appears, again and again. Soon the girls from Leah's after-school disability center go missing, one by one. Whether the spirit is a warning or threat, Naomi doesn't know, but when she finds the body of one of the missing girls in the river, she knows that she must unravel the twisted secrets of her past, before her daughter becomes the next victim.

Father has been in the ground for years. But at the Covenant of Jesus' Cleansing Waters, the dead don't stay buried forever.

"Putting the "gothic" back in Southern gothic, Wendy Vogel's Trouble the Water is a brooding mystery that explores the depths of depraved religion and the lingering devastation it leaves behind. It's an immersive tale that lures you into mysteries wrapped in mysteries-concentric secrets burning deep and painful scars across its character's lives. There are ghosts here, literal and figural, and it's impossible to say which is more terrifying. Romantic, heartbreaking, filled with hard twists and turns that leave you with no easy way out, Trouble the Water is a book for those who like their ghost stories as ghastly as real life. Get it." -Polly Schattel, author of Shadowdays