#Spooktober ‘Cold Water Veins’ by Amy Lukavics

About the book…

A chilling family saga with a supernatural twist, Cold Water Veins is a captivating story of sisterhood, secrets, and being called home. 

Two estranged sisters, Lillian and Adelia, struggle to come to terms after the mother they’ve believed to be dead for the past 15 years actually passes away. Confused and in shock, they travel together to the isolated village of their childhood to claim the farm that was passed on to them. There’s comfort in returning to this place of their birth, where a simpler, rustic life feels possible – but the sisters quickly realize that something is very wrong with the village and that their mother was hiding more than they could have ever imagined.

An Audible original novella, narrated by Lauren Fortgang, ‘Cold Water Veins’ is a tale of the love of two sisters for each other, in spite of the passage of years, and entire lives structured on lies.

It doesn’t specifically have a set time frame, the use of horses for transport contrast with mentions of apartments, and tank tops so it could really be set anywhere in the last century. Adelia and Lily start the book being taken away from their small village, Birchville (I think?) on the side of mountains in possibly the South of America. They live a agricultural life, before being taken by their father away, into the world that most of us recognise. He tells them that their mother has gone missing, is most likely dead, and that they need to get away.

15 years pass, the sisters becoming estranged (Lily leaves Adelia) until, contacted by their father, they find that their mother really has died, and has left them their childhood home. An ignominious and lonely death , in the house kept as a monument to the childhood of the two girls, they go back to see if they can unravel the web of lives which has led to their estrangement.

Their arrival heralds mysterious deaths which make no sense-advanced putrefaction and decay which is impossible, blackened teeth, pulled out, alongside clumps of hair and translucent skin are commonalities between them.

Worrying that the girls have bought a curse with them, Adelia confronts her first love, Everett, who never left there, whilst Lily is drawn to walk in her mother’s footsteps.

But with death dogging their footsteps, can the sisters work out the secret of their origins?

And when they find out, will they wish they never looked?

Creepy and horrific with some excellent descriptions of the horror meted to a disparate number of villagers, this novella is beautifully narrated, and really explores the consequences of wishing for something that you just might get. They are fed lies about their mother instead of the truth, in a move which is universal to fathers who want to control the narrative, and environment in which their daughters come of age.

However, the discovery of a diary not only fleshes out the back story, it introduces some very creepy monsters, discusses the nature versus nurture issue of parental responsibility, and presents a life of sparsity but one-ness with the earth and the natural world. It packs a fair amount in the relatively short running time, I loved how spooky it was and wish I had been able to take notes as I had the novella on in work whilst I was studying . It was a dark and gloomy day in my lower basement hobbit hole and this was the soundtrack of my afternoon, it was a lot of fun to listen to!

About the author…

Ever since she was little, Amy was especially intrigued by horror books and movies. Raised in a small mountain town in Arizona, she sustained herself on a steady diet of Goosebumps, Fear Street, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books before discovering Stephen King in her mother’s bookshelf.

Amy lives with her husband, their two precious squidlings, and an old gentleman cat by the name of Frodo. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys cooking, crafting, and playing games across many platforms

Links-http://www.amylukavics.com/