Novel Synopsis

And here is the synopsis for the novel I just finished (well, the first draft anyway).  I actually won an honorable mention for the Frank Doubleday Awards in Wyoming for the first ten pages of this novel.

A year has passed since Sam Guerin made the choice to walk away from his best friend, Darcy, without a backwards glance. Now Darcy has wrapped her car around a tree and Sam spends the endless hours of his days working at his father's mechanic shop and hiding in his house, angry and reclusive, with nothing left of Darcy but the blame gnawing at his heart. Forced into good behavior by his probation and the adoration of his young niece, Olivia, Sam is determined to keep his nose clean and stay out of trouble. That means keeping his life as boring as possible and avoiding his ex-employer, Jackson Knight. Sam just wants to get on with his life and forget about Darcy. It's too late for them anyway.

It begins with mysterious texts from an unavailable number, unexplained disturbances in Sam's house, and the cat's increasingly strange behavior. Then the dreams start, dreams that hint at details Sam has no way of knowing, dreams that slam him awake drenched in a cold sweat, and bring on a fever unlike anything he's ever experienced. Someone or something is playing with him, rattling bones better left buried, and tormenting him with memories that fester in his mind. As if that isn’t enough to drive Sam completely insane, Jackson is campaigning for him to come back to work for him and he’s refusing to take no for an answer. If Sam is just losing his mind, overwhelmed by the grief he's locked away, then why is the cat acting so screwy? Why is Olivia insisting that Darcy is visiting her at night? And why is Jackson trying so hard to drag him down again? Sam is close to falling down the rabbit hole that put him on probation and made him lose Darcy in the first place, unless he can finally learn to trust the one person who has always had faith in him. Figuring out the circumstances surrounding Darcy's death may prove to be his undoing, or it just might grant Sam the second chance his soul craves and open his mind to a new talent he never knew he had.