The Meadows Legacy of Darkness Book 1
Supernatural Thriller
Carfax Abbey Publishing
October 19, 2018
442
A decades-old murder. A blood-thirsty cult. And a house full of spirits.
It was supposed to be a new beginning, a fresh start in the Shenandoah Valley, where Scarlett’s memories weren’t riddled with drug addiction and rehab. But after purchasing an abandoned house with a checkered past in the hopes of transforming it into a luxury bed and breakfast, strange things start to happen. Disturbing voices and noises interrupt her new life. Strangers appear, bearing cryptic warnings. A tunnel is discovered underneath the house—one historically used for a local cult’s rituals. After a late night encounter with an entity that leaves her injured, Scarlett realizes she is being targeted by violent spirits.
Driven to the edge of despair, Scarlett vows to fight back—but she has no idea what she’s really battling. And her nightmare is just beginning…
The Meadows is a gripping supernatural thriller in which the monsters may be vampires, demons, or flesh and blood. It is a nightmare that will make you believe it could easily happen to you.
The Meadows is another great offering by London Clarke, full of suspense and terror. - Readers' Favorite
Reviewed by: Linda Tonis
Member of the Paranormal Romance Review Team
Scarlett DeHaven has just gotten out of rehab for an addiction to drugs and alcohol and knows that if she stays in Nashville she will just fall right back into her old habits so when a grand estate called Asphodel House in Shenandoah comes up for sale she immediately sees it as a bed and breakfast. Scarlett attended college in Shenandoah and that is where some of her happiest memories are from so it made sense to move there and start over.
Scarlett is a famous songwriter who wrote her songs while under the influence now she is afraid that she will not be able to write while sober but that fear is nothing compared to what she will face when she finally begins working on her bed and breakfast. The Asphodel House was abandoned in 1990 and has stood vacant every since and Scarlett learns very quickly the reason for that. A family was murdered in that house in 1986 and the last occupants ran from the house leaving everything behind.
Voices, apparitions and a trap door that leads to a black frightening tunnel are just the beginning of Scarlett’s nightmare and after a few days her five months of sobriety are gone and alcohol is once again her coping mechanism. It doesn’t take long before her contractor and his men take off and refuse to return leaving the fate of her bed and breakfast looking worse day by day.
When Scarlett’s best friend Stella comes to visit, a friend who stood by her through all her missteps she feels a little stronger not being alone but her selfishness and drinking allow Stella to be a victim of the house and the evil that resides there. It is only after she meets Hunter Massabrook that she sees a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, an ex-priest and now a demonologist he is convinced that he can cleanse the house of the spirits that are there.
When Hunter was a teen he and a group of friends entered the house and came face to face with the evil that lived there both demonic and human. The Colony is a group that practice vampirism and barely escaping one friend was left behind and died. Now he faces evil everyday and banishes it but his work did not leave him unscathed.
This was a chilling story and I found the suspense really picked up in the last half of the book. I did not care for Scarlett but Stella and Hunter were amazing characters that you would not hesitate to call friend. For those who love the supernatural filled with demons and cults then this is the book for you.