Theme Music
A Novel
-
-
3.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $10.99
Publisher Description
“If you've been looking for your newest horror obsession after The Haunting of Hill House, read this one next.”—BuzzFeed
She didn't run from her dark past. She moved in.
For the lucky among us, life is what you make of it; but for Dixie Wheeler, the theme music for her story was chosen by another long ago, on the day her father butchered her mother and brothers and then slashed a knife across his own throat. Only one-year-old Dixie was spared, becoming infamously known as Baby Blue for the song left playing in the aftermath of the slaughter.
Twenty-five years later, Dixie is still desperate for a connection to the family she can’t remember. So when her childhood home goes up for sale, Dixie sets aside all reason and moves in. But as the ghosts of her family seemingly begin to take up residence in the house that was once theirs, Dixie starts to question her sanity and wonders if the evil force menacing her is that of her father or a demon of her own making.
In order to make sense of her present, Dixie becomes determined to unravel the truth of her past and seeks out the detective who originally investigated the murders. But the more she learns, the more she opens up the uncomfortable possibility that the sins of her father may belong to another. As bodies begin to pile up around her, Dixie must find a way to expose the lunacy behind her family’s massacre to save her few loved ones who are still alive—and whatever scrap of sanity she has left.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dixie Wheeler, the narrator of Vandelly's chilling, enthralling debut, was the sole survivor of a massacre in which her father, Bill, took an ax and, just before breakfast one Thanksgiving, killed his wife and their three sons ages 15, eight, and four before slitting his own throat. Only 18-month-old Dixie was left unharmed in their Franconia, Va., home. The press nicknamed her "Baby Blue" because that Badfinger song was playing when the police arrived. When the Wheeler house comes on the market 25 years later, listed as a "stigmatized property," Dixie impulsively buys it, despite vehement objections from her boyfriend and the aunt who raised her. Dixie furnishes it with the family's furniture that was stored in the garage of her late uncle, who was adamant that Bill was innocent. The suspense rises as Dixie hears noises, finds items moved or missing, hallucinates about her dead family, and taps into her own dark side. Driven by a believable plot and populated with realistic characters, this delicious mix of horror, ghost story, and mystery marks Vandelly as a writer to watch.
