THE LIFE AND DEATH PARADE

An enigmatic story centering around a young man’s mysterious death foretold by a psychic.

Kitty lives in an anachronistic castle in the English country with her late mother’s employers, the aristocratic Bramleys. After the Bramleys’ son, Nikki, visits a psychic one night and learns that he has no future, his behavior swiftly turns erratic and dangerous, bewildering his loved ones. The narrative shifts abruptly forward a year in time, and we learn that Nikki has, in fact, died under mysterious circumstances. With the family deep in the throes of grief, Kitty sets out to discover the psychic who spoke with Nikki in hopes of understanding what led to his inexplicable, fatal downward spiral. Instead she comes across Roan, a young man who tells her about the Life and Death Parade, a traveling troupe of charlatans who peddle dark magic to believers, which include himself, the psychic, and Kitty’s late mother in their ranks. Kitty helps Roan to ingratiate himself with the Bramleys so that she can use him to find the psychic, but nothing turns out quite like she expects. When the carnival of the Life and Death Parade finally makes its appearance, the pace of the cryptic narrative escalates via a series of surprising twists and revelations. The book assumes a white default.

Patient readers will be rewarded with a meandering, fitful yarn enlivened by undercurrents of dark magic.