Sunday Snippet: The Secrets of Hawthorne House by Donald Firesmith

Today’s Sunday Snippet is an extract from the Coming of Age fantasy The Secrets of Hawthorne House by Donald Firesmith. Published on the 1st of October 2018 by the publisher Mage Press, The Secrets of Hawthorne House by Donald Firesmith has 415 pages and is available as both an ebook and paperback. The Amazon ASIN is B07GV2F814 for the Kindle ebook and the ISBN 978-1726283151 is for the paperback (published by Create Space on the 28th of September 2018).

Synopsis of The Secrets of Hawthorne House by Donald Firesmith

Matt’s life changes forever when a family of druids moves into the dilapidated Victorian mansion next door. The story of an unlikely friendship, the clash of two completely different cultures, secret magic, and a search for the lost Hawthorne treasure.

Fifteen-year-old Matt Mitchell was having the worst summer imaginable. Matt’s misery started when a drunk driver killed his mother. Then his father moved him and his twin sister to the small town of Hawthorne in rural Indiana, as far as his grieving father could take from the ocean that Matt’s mother had loved. At the new high school, three bullies are determined to make Matt miserable. And to top it off, Matt learns that the recluse who lives in the ‘haunted house” next door is none other than Old Lady Hawthorne, the town’s infamous witch and murderer. Matt’s terrible summer is turning into an awful autumn when something quite unexpected happens. Old Lady Hawthorne’s niece and her three children arrive, and Matt meets Gerallt.

 

The Snippet

Spotting Matt as the only familiar face in the room, Gerallt walked over and sat at the empty desk next to him. It also happened to be the chair directly in front of Clayton Cartwright.
Waiting for the teacher to face the chalkboard and turn his back to the class, Clayton leaned forward, stretched out his arm, and poked a sausage-sized finger into Gerallt’s back. “Hey, new kid,” Clayton whispered. “Where’d you get the Halloween costume? What’re you supposed to be, some kind of Goth druggie?”

Gerallt ignored Clayton. Matt glanced sideways, the memory of his own initial run-in with Clayton still fresh in his mind from the first day of school.
“What’s the matter with you?” Clayton continued, leaning forward to poke Gerallt again. “I’m talking to you. You deaf? Or stoned!”
Gerallt glanced over his shoulder, gave Clayton a look of utter contempt, and then turned back to read what the teacher was writing on the chalkboard.
“Oh, I get it,” Clayton whispered, giving Gerallt a third poke in the back. “You’re one of these Amish kids who don’t believe in fighting. Believe in turning the other cheek, do you? Or maybe you’re just a coward.” He gave Gerallt a shove to the back of the head. “Just wait ‘til after school, Bible boy, and I’ll give you a little something on each cheek.”

This time it was Gerallt who made sure the teacher was still busy at the blackboard with his back to the class. Then he turned and whispered in the same unusual accent as his sister, “My great ahnt warned me about you, Clayton Cartwright. It will take more than the likes of you tah frighten me. And I promise you this. Poke me one more time in the back, and you won’t be poking anyone for a very long time.” Then Gerallt turned his back on Clayton, swiftly slipped his fingertips between the wooden buttons of his shirt and began to whisper something too softly for Matt to hear.
“Is that so, Bible boy?” Clayton replied angrily, just loudly enough for the teacher to hear. Mr. Thompson turned around just in time to see Clayton lean his considerable weight forward to poke Gerallt once more in the back.

Clayton’s finger had barely touched Gerallt’s back when there was a loud crack as the front legs of Clayton’s chair snapped. Suspended motionless for an instant, his entire body pivoted forward on the chair’s remaining legs, and his nose smashed into the back of Gerallt’s chair with a sickening, yet strangely satisfying, crunch. Next, his outstretched index finger, driven by the whole weight of his body and desk, hit the floor with such force that the resulting snap was heard clearly by everyone in the room. This was followed instantly by the crash of Clayton’s desktop, body, and books onto the floor followed by an unexpectedly high-pitched scream of pain. After a second of shocked silence, the class erupted as everybody started talking and yelling at once.

***

If you enjoyed reading the snippet from The Secrets of Hawthorne House by Donald Firesmith please purchase your own copy via your favourite book retailer or on Amazon using either of the tabs below. The author would really appreciate your support

In the meantime, please leave a comment below. I would like to know what you think of The Secrets of Hawthorne House by Donald Firesmith