Jennifer Mcmahon - Author
Jennifer McMahon was born in 1968 and grew up in her grandmother’s house in suburban Connecticut. She wrote my first short story in third grade and graduated with a BA from Goddard College in 1991. She has been a house painter, farm worker, paste-up artist, Easter Bunny, pizza delivery person, homeless shelter staff member, and counselor for adults and kids with mental illness. She quit her last ‘real job’ in 2000 to work on writing full time.
Author photo © Drea Thew
Haunting, arresting and truly unforgettable this is a story that will strike terror in your mind but it will also deliver the unexpected time and time again as the story unfolds. Cleverly linking a recent murder with one that happened more than 30 years ago it has definite comparisons to the Blair Witch Project but also stands alone as a superb piece of deeply disturbing and darkly compelling writing that will consume the reader and have you looking over your shoulder long after you’ve read the final page.
On the surface, Ashford, Vermont, seems like a quaint New England college town, but to those who live among the shadowy remains of its abandoned mills and factories, and beneath its towering steel bridges, it's known as Burntown.Eva Sandeski, who goes by the name Necco on the street, has been a part of Burntown's underworld for years, ever since the night her father, Miles, drowned in a flood that left her and her mother, Lily, homeless. A respected professor, Miles was also an inventor of fantastic machines, including one so secret that the plans were said to have been stolen from Thomas Edison's workshop. According to Lily, this machine got Miles murdered.Necco has always written off this claim as the fevered imaginings of a woman consumed by grief. But when Lily also dies under mysterious circumstances, and Necco's boyfriend is murdered, she's convinced her mother was telling the truth. Now, on the run from a man called Snake Eyes, Necco must rely on other Burntown outsiders to survive.As the lives of these misfits intersect, and as the killer from the Sandeski family's past draws ever closer, a story of edge-of-your-seat suspense begins to unfurl with classic Jennifer McMahon twists and turns.
The latest novel fromNew York Timesbest-selling author Jennifer McMahon is an atmospheric, gripping, and suspenseful tale that probes the bond between sisters and the peril of keeping secrets. Once the thriving attraction of rural Vermont, the Tower Motel now stands in disrepair, alive only in the memories of Amy, Piper, and Piper's kid sister, Margot. The three played there as girls until the day that their games uncovered something dark and twisted in the motel's past, something that ruined their friendship forever.Now adult, Piper and Margot have tried to forget what they found that fateful summer, but their lives are upended when Piper receives a panicked midnight call from Margot, with news of a horrific crime for which Amy stands accused. Suddenly, Margot and Piper are forced to relive the time that they found the suitcase that once belonged to Silvie Slater, the aunt that Amy claimed had run away to Hollywood to live out her dream of becoming Hitchcock's next blonde bombshell leading lady. As Margot and Piper investigate, a cleverly woven plot unfoldsrevealing the story of Sylvie and Rose, two other sisters who lived at the motel during its 1950s heyday. Each believed the other to be something truly monstrous, but only one carries the secret that would haunt the generations to come.From the Hardcover edition.
FromNew York Timesbestselling author Jennifer McMahon comes five dark and chilling novels in one e-book,including:Promise Not to Tell,Island of Lost Girls,Dismantled,Dont Breathe a Word, andThe One I Left Behind.Promise Not to TellA chilling novel about a woman whose past and present collide when she returns to her small hometown to care for her aging mother on the same night a young girl is killed.Island of Lost GirlsWhen 23 year-old Rhonda sees someone in a large rabbit suit kidnap a young girl, the investigation that follows uncovers the secrets behind the disappearance of her childhood friend, Lizzy, years ago.DismantledA novel about a group of old friends who once believed things (and perhaps, people) must be taken apart, literally, to be truly understood.Dont Breathe a WordOne couple finds themselves in a seemingly supernatural web of fairies that links them to a young girls disappearance 15 years ago.The OneILeft BehindAgut-wrenching mystery about an architect whose troubled mother has been found 25 years after being kidnapped by a serial killer who is still on the loose.
The New York Times bestselling author of Promise Not to Tell returns with a simmering literary thriller about ghostly secrets, dark choices, and the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters . . . sometimes too unbreakable. West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie. Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that suddenly proves perilous when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished without a trace. Searching for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother's bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked deeper into the mystery of Sara's fate, she discovers that she's not the only person who's desperately looking for someone that they've lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.
The summer of 1985 changes Reggies life. An awkward thirteen-year-old, she finds herself mixed up with the school outcasts. That same summer, a serial killer called Neptune begins kidnapping women. He leaves their severed hands on the police department steps and, five days later, displays their bodies around town. Just when Reggie needs her mother, Vera, the most, Veras hand is found on the steps. But after five days, theres no body and Neptune disappears.Now, twenty-five years later, Reggie is a successful architect who has left her hometown and the horrific memories of that summer behind. But when she gets a call revealing that her mother has been found alive, Reggie must confront the ghosts of her past and find Neptune before he kills again.
In this special, limited time edition of Dont Breathe a Word, youll receive a bonus excerpt from Jennifer McMahons new novel, The One I Left Behind, available January 8, 2013.Dont Breathe a Word is a dark and twisty tale in which one couple finds themselves in a seemingly supernatural web of fairies that links them to a young girls disappearance 15 years ago.
On a soft summer night in Vermont, twelve-year-old Lisa went into the woods behind her house and never came out again. Before she disappeared, she told her little brother, Sam, about a door that led to a magical place where she would meet the King of the Fairies and become his queen.Fifteen years later, Phoebe is in love with Sam, a practical, sensible man who doesnt fear the dark and doesnt have bad dreamswho, in fact, helps Phoebe ignore her own. But suddenly the couple is faced with a series of eerie, unexplained occurrences that challenge Sams hardheaded, realistic view of the world. As they question their reality, a terrible promise Sam made years ago is revealeda promise that could destroy them all.
Haunting, arresting and truly unforgettable this is a story that will strike terror in your mind but it will also deliver the unexpected time and time again as the story unfolds. Cleverly linking a recent murder with one that happened more than 30 years ago it has definite comparisons to the Blair Witch Project but also stands alone as a superb piece of deeply disturbing and darkly compelling writing that will consume the reader and have you looking over your shoulder long after you’ve read the final page.
