Southern Gothic, Mystery, Paranormal Women’s Fiction
Published: July 2021
Publisher: Zimbell House Publishing
The Whitfield Estate is hidden deep in the Big Thicket outside of Soda, Texas. This reclusive family brood amassed their oil and timber fortune over four generations, and now that it’s been done, they have become painfully aware of how isolated and broken they are as a family.
Tessa Nettles, fresh from college, is hired as the estate manager. But her main role is to help the youngest Whitfield, Caroline, have a more normal life. She has been cloistered away at Whitfield for the whole of her first fourteen years. Now, her oldest brother, Grayson, wants to make a happier life for her than he and his brother, Travis, had.
But first, what will he do about the strange lights that fall from the sky over the Trinity River, and their connection with the mysterious voices at the end of the road, the voices of entities that have secretly been Caroline’s only friends her whole life? But are these ghostly entities dangerous? And will they want Tessa gone from Whitfield?
Will Old Gullah Woman and Preacher Man be allowed to stay on in the rundown river cabin, stirring up the waters and calling down the mysterious lights? Or will the Whitfield matriarch run them off, even after their Gullah potions kept her husband alive two years longer than the doctors could have?
And will Tessa bring harmony to the estate, or set off a competition between the brothers that has the potential to destroy the Whitfields completely?
Other books in the Ghosts of the Big Thicket Southern Gothic Mystery Series Include:
Ghosts of the Big Thicket, Book One
The Girls of Cemetery Road
Ghosts of the Big Thicket, Book Two
About The Author
Twyla Ellis is a descendent of pioneers who came to Texas in the 1840s, while Texas was still a Republic. She grew up roaming the dense pine forests in the Big Thicket around Livingston, Texas at the homes of her grandmother, great-aunts and uncles, and cousins. Her family was one of the founding families of Livingston, and her great-great-great-grandfather was the first city treasurer in the eighteen-forties. She fell in love with the haunting feel of the Thicket, its sounds, and sights, and smells. Her goal is to make people aware of the mystique of this novel part of Texas.
She holds a degree from Howard Payne University and had taught English and Music, and has been a member of NEA, TSTA, and TETA. She was a statewide officer and conference speaker with TETA (Texas English Teachers Association). She has run her own children’s party and event planning business, Parties by Twyla, as well as Remembrances Antiques and Gifts in the Houston area. She is certified in computer graphic design and free-lances in her spare time.
Nothing makes her happier than road trips with her family to interesting old Texas towns. She loves church, antiquing, fossil hunting with her husband and sons (they hunt, she writes), Big Bend, the Alamo (don’t all Texans?), exploring deserted buildings with a camera, and especially, the Big Thicket of deep East Texas.
If she had to give you a one-sentence bio of herself, she would probably say, “That obnoxiously joyful, hug-driven, southern relative that you’d like to hide in the attic, just might be me.”
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