Generation of Vipers
Maria Ann Green
Publication date: June 18th 2021
Genres: Adult, Gothic, Psychological, Thriller
Rosabella Moore-Davis has just moved her husband halfway across the world, with a spur of the moment purchase–a glorious gothic mansion–while on vacation in France. It was love at first sight, and somehow she knew it was more than just some huge house; it was meant to be her home.
But not all things that are meant to be end happily ever after.
Rosabella soon finds herself waking in the middle of the night from more than just wind and creaking pipes. In the dark she discovers ghostly figures looking up into her windows from outside, rooms and treasures previously hidden for centuries, creeping crawling guests, and too many dark shadows lunging toward her. And still, somehow, instead of screaming and running away she researches, choosing knowledge over fear, and learns more about the house and the history of this place she loves so much.
Only when she stumbles into the past, meeting an aristocrat hiding enough deadly secrets to take down the patriarchy, does Rosabella start to regret her choices. And after having come this far, she worries it’s too late to turn back and save herself from a house that has more skeletons in its vast amount of closet space than anyone expected.
Rosabella isn’t the fleeing type, but she’s not sure she’ll survive the fight. Especially against a place with so many stories buried beneath it, burned into every fiber of the edifice, a house with a portal to dark places and troubles that shouldn’t be stirred up.
Generation of Vipers is a mix of crimson peak and Mike Flanagan’s Haunting of Hill House, with elements of Marisha Pessl’s Night Film mixed throughout.
If you like dark thrillers that border on horror, gothic elements, and deliciously dark twists that will keep you guessing, then Generation of Vipers might be your next favorite book. It’ll keep you reading just one more page all night long, too afraid to turn out the light and go to sleep.
It appeals to lovers of suspenseful plots, all things dark like thrillers and horrors, stories with murder and mayhem, dark romance elements, fans of American Horror Story, Shirley Jackson, Gilian Flynn, Ruth Ware, Tana French, J.A. Konrath, and the Timothy Blake Series by Jack Heath.
*Content Warning: graphic violence, sexual content, and language*
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A clatter of too many noises all at once. Like the banging ofspoons on pots and pans, something that elicits flinching and sour faces, making my ears ring and a little dot of pain form just behind my left temple.
Tierney screams. It mirrors the burst of sound that came from me in the library. Or rather, as I exited the library.
“Oi!” Alice yells as she stands upright in one shot. It knocks the chair over that had, just a moment ago, been holding her up. And now it’s on the floor.
In the very same movement, Tierney is jumping up too—though she manages to scoot her chair back just enough in her scramble to prevent it from crashing down and adding to the chaotic noises. And my neck is sure to hurt for days from the whiplash I’m putting it through as I try to figure out what exactly is going on.
Tierney had been in the process of bringing her glass to her lips for a slow sip, but instead, the green liquid is now all over what had been left on her plate, all over the white linen runner on the table. But worst of all, it’s all over her beautiful dress now too.
I can only imagine what it will do to the fabric, stickiness will be the least of her problems.
But finally, finally I see why almost every other person has jumped up from the table, scooting to the outer edges of the spacious room.
My eyes widen first and then narrow to slits as I watch a huge spider crawling across the cream tablecloth. When its feet find the Chartreuse, it skitters to backtrack. Running into the obstacles of flatware and continued screams, the huge black thing doesn’t seem to have a plan for what to do next.
Tierney’s shrieks subside, but once they do, I can hear Gabriel’s running monologue that had been covered until now. “Merde. Salope. Enculer. Merde, Merde, Meeeeerde,” he mumble-shouts, like his body can’t decide between the terror, wanting to yell, and the need to keep the thing from jumping at him in surprise from a sudden burst of curse words.
Finally, his panic takes over, and like his wife, Gabriel, the last to move away from the chaos and toward the safety of an exit, knocks over his chair. Only when his crashes to the hard floor, it’s not just the sound that erupts.
From beneath Gabriel’s plate skitter several more spiders. Three, no four, five—six more spiders start dancing across the spilled food and soaking fabric. These are bigger ones. Fat with the bloat of recent meals. And even from here, almost as far as I can be from them while still sitting at the table, I can see they’re hairy.
The kind of critters that fill nightmares.
Author Bio:
Maria, a badass USA Today and internationally bestselling indie author, lives in Minnesota despite the frozen winters. Actually, she prefers snow drifts and icicles over summer and all that sweat running everywhere. She writes about bitches, breakups, and bloodbaths – not in any particular order. She lives with her husband and little family, which includes a few lazy cats who make great lap warmers. You can usually find her whishing that she lived in a secret cabin in the woods where she could be a hermit reading and writing all of the time. Instead she lives the suburban life where she pretends to her neighbors and the other moms around that she doesn’t swear like a sailor, have hidden tattoos, and loves a good bottle of wine. She absolutely believes in unicorns and ghosts and hopes vampires and monsters are real too. She’s a coffee-in-the-morning and alcohol-in-the-evening kind of person, preferably with a nap in between. Maria prefers cats over dogs, books over people, and late nights over early mornings. She probably shouldn’t talk to anyone until she’s had her first cup of coffee, extra sugar. And if you ever want to hang out with her, you’ll have to be game for a horror movie or just a quick run to target for two (hundred) little things. Also, you couldn’t pay her to be in her twenties again; Thirties is where it’s at. She’s a creative, mouthy, introverted, proud bisexual, highly-sensitive INFJ, chronic pain spoonie warrior, Slytherpuff, dork with a sweet-tooth.
Maria devours books, reading mostly in bed or listening to audiobooks in the car. Writing has been one of her passions for pretty much her whole life. So creativity is a necessity for her, always. After working in the mental health field for almost a decade, she’s now living her dream as a stay-at-home writer, kiddo wrangler, professional snuggler, and constantly-tired-person. When it comes to her writing, she specializes in dark and twisted thrillers or gritty, angsty contemporary romances. But no matter the genre, she always prefers writing deeply flawed characters with dysfunctional relationships. She’s pretty sure the whole “unlikable character” thing is a conspiracy because every character she loves have been labeled this way. Ridiculous. And because of this, she’s pretty much found it impossible to write anything without at least a little mayhem.
Maria was once told she painted with her words, and that phrase stuck with her – because writing really is an art, and good stories are true masterpieces. She’s always trying to grow and improve in her craft, shooting for a masterpiece of her own someday. And she plans to write forever because writing gives Maria the ability to disappear into new worlds and create people within twisting plots, all from the comfort of her couch. She will always believe that though not every story is for her, and her stories aren’t for everyone, every story has a reader.
For more from Maria find all of her links, including a link to get more content at her newsletter, here: linktr.ee/mariainmadness
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