Reflections

By Kari Kilgore

A beloved family home, abandoned and broken.

A so-called adult life, not much better off.

Jessica's hopes of finding her joy fade as soon as she steps through the door.

Sometimes fear of staying the same hits harder than fear of the unknown.

Can facing her fears, and her memories, make Jessica's life right at last?

An excerpt from Reflections:

Jessica's childhood rose all around her.

Every cautious step into the darkness sent her disappointing present falling away from her mind, heart, and body. Colors brighter, sounds more harmonious, smells and tastes so much sweeter. All the choices and decisions of her life still ahead, all wide open and joyful with possibility.

Her rational adult mind longed to reject those memories as unrealistic. Nothing but wistful nostalgia. Typical symptoms of a recent divorce, turning forty, and needing to believe everything was better in days gone by.

The truth was Jessica's childhood had been pretty damn good. It was the grownup part she wasn't all that great at.

She jumped and nearly screamed when her fingertips brushed a rough, scratchy surface. Before her imagination could conjure a broad-shouldered monster blocking her way, she turned the phone's flashlight on.

Visual input only made things worse for a few seconds

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spiral Publishing, Ltd
• Release date: Apr 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781090527578

Kari Kilgore

Kari Kilgore started her first published novel Until Death in Transylvania, Romania, and finished it in Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where Stephen King got the idea for The Shining. That’s just one example of how real world inspiration drives her fiction. Kari’s first published novel Until Death was included on the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a First Novel in 2016. It was also a finalist for the Golden Stake Award at the Vampire Arts Festival in 2018. Recent professional short story sales include three to Fiction River anthology magazine, with the first due out in the September issue. Kari also has two stories in a holiday-themed anthology project with Kristine Kathryn Rusch due out over the holidays in 2019. Kari writes fantasy, science fiction, horror, and contemporary fiction, and she’s happiest when she surprises herself. She lives at the end of a long dirt road in the middle of the woods with her husband Jason Adams, various house critters, and wildlife they’re better off not knowing more about. Kari’s novels, novellas, and short stories are available at www.spiralpublishing.net, which also publishes books by Frank Kilgore and Jason Adams. For more information about Kari, upcoming publications, her travels and adventures, and random cool things that catch her attention, visit www.karikilgore.com.

Book preview

Reflections

For my brother, James Walker Steffey II

---

An expert at walking the line

between standard and strange

Reflections

Kari Kilgore

Spiral Publishing, Ltd.

Reflections

The air in the abandoned house felt as thick and heavy as the knots of gray cobwebs in every corner. Jessica still caught glimpses of her grandparents’ lovely old home, almost buried under filth and decades of neglect. Meager as the light filtering through the hastily boarded up windows was, she wished she couldn’t see quite so much.

The grand, curving staircase, her family’s turn-of-the-last-century pride and joy, was littered with piles of crumbling white plaster and mounds of gummy dust. The dark hardwood floor she’d so hated polishing was invisible under a bleak landscape of moldy cheap carpeting.

Someone had painted over the beautiful oak woodwork, a sin Jessica’s eyes wanted to flinch away from. Hand-crafted wainscoting, fitted with geometric precision to match each riser of the staircase, hid behind clumps and drips of thick white latex paint.

The sturdy sides and handrail had escaped an amateur’s paintbrush, but a thick coat of mildew and deep green moss did the heartbreaking job. Delicate swirls and curling patterns of wood between the rail and the stairs sprouted furry tendrils almost like hair.

The floor creaked and groaned as she stepped forward, reaching toward the broken heart of this once beloved home. Her grandmother had loved spinning the tale of her own father supervising when they brought the carefully boxed grand piano on board their Atlantic crossing steamship. Several children, many grandchildren, and dozens of great-grandchildren listened awestruck at the number of men required to move the massive crate.

Those children may have later grown frustrated or even bored with endless

Reviews for Reflections

[kalky_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

REFLECTIONS by Clifton Kenny follows Shane Sullivan as he discovers that he has the ability to talk to people from the past—specifically the ancestors of whomever is nearby when he starts to “reflect.” With this gift, Shane (accompanied by his friends Paige and Jimmer) discovers that the history lessons he learned in school aren’t the full story, and the people he sees every day have sometimes astonishing backgrounds. He also learns quite a bit about his own family and the genealogical path that led to his existence.Kenny pulls on history (of course), science, and theology to tell Shane’s story. Set in 1974, the teens in REFLECTIONS have an impressive level of freedom. Shane and the other Sullivans (Shane is the youngest of four kids) have full run of their house since both parents work odd hours, and they make use of it with typical teenage shenanigans—and some atypical adventures as well. Shane is an agreeable protagonist, and the premise of the book is really interesting. Although some of the more academic explanations went a little long, and some of the sex scenes seemed gratuitous, the book is well written with good pacing. I’m not sure who the target audience is… the main characters are eighth graders, but some of the content is a bit risqué for middle school kids. For fantasy readers who are looking for something a little different, I recommend you check out REFLECTIONS!My thanks to the author for a copy of an ebook in exchange for my honest review.