Beneath the Stairs: A Novel

Jennifer Fawcett

Feb 2022 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

In this spine-tingling, atmospheric “nail-biter of a novel” (Shelf Awareness), a woman returns to her hometown after her childhood friend attempts suicide at an alleged haunted house—the same place where a traumatic incident shattered their lives twenty years ago.

Few in sleepy Sumner’s Mills have stumbled across the Octagon House hidden deep in the woods. Even fewer are brave enough to trespass. A man had killed his wife and two young daughters there, a shocking, gruesome crime that the sleepy upstate New York town tried to bury. One summer night, an emboldened fourteen-year-old Clare and her best friend, Abby, ventured into the Octagon House. Clare came out, but a piece of Abby never did.

Twenty years later, Clare receives word that Abby has attempted suicide at the Octagon House and now lies in a coma. With little to lose, Clare returns to her roots to uncover the darkness responsible for ruining their lives.

A “spellbinding horror story, where the terror comes not from ghosts, but from the haunted places we find within ourselves” (Elizabeth Brundage, author of The Vanishing Point), Beneath the Stairs is perfect for fans of Jennifer McMahon, Simone St. James, and Chris Bohjalian.

About the author

Before writing books, Jennifer Fawcett was an award-winning playwright and cofounder of the theater company Working Group. She is the author of Beneath the Stairs and Keep This for Me. Born and raised in Canada, she spent a decade living in the Midwest before settling in the Hudson Valley. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. Her work has been published in Third Coast Magazine, Reunion: The Dallas Review, Storybrink, and in the anthology Long Story Short. She teaches writing at Skidmore College and lives in upstate New York with her husband and son. Visit her at JenniferFawcettAuthor.com.