Preorder Now!
Hush – by Leanna Sain
She dreams a murder before it happens.
A young woman is strangled while her killer sings the words from the lullaby “Hush, Little Baby.”
Lacey Campbell’s life is full, but not idyllic. As head chef for a chic restaurant and primary caregiver to a mother with Alzheimer’s, she doesn’t have time for the nightmare and at first she tries to deny it. But the next day, she discovers it’s a disturbing reality. When she dreams the second heinous murder she knows it’s time to tell the police.
Detective Ford Jamison is called back to the little coastal town to help with the case and soon notices an alarming trend: the killer is using the lullaby as a “blueprint” to target women who resemble Lacey. This doesn’t slow the killings and now Lacey is afraid to fall asleep at night because the next face she sees in her dream might be her own.
As a hurricane churns ever closer to the little coastal town, danger and suspicion spin out of control. Time is running out. Can they stop the killer before the last verse of the lullaby?
Excerpt:
“Shhh. Don’t worry. No one will bother us here,” he soothed the young woman as he settled her on the porch swing, propping her up with a pillow. “We have all the privacy we’ll need. The shop is closed.”
Terrified dark eyes welled with tears above immobile lips, sending a silent plea, begging him in the only way she could.
He smiled tenderly, and smoothed the tears away with a gloved hand before spreading her dark curls out like a fan over her shoulders, adjusting individual tendrils so they lay just right. “Your hair is one of the reasons I chose you. You have to look the part, you know.”
“I’m sorry it has to end like this. I really like you, I do, but your role is just a minor one in this play.” He shook his head sadly. “Minor, but important. It sets the stage for the rest of the performance. It’s not your fault, and it’s not personal. It’s just the way it is. There,” he leaned back and cocked his head to the side, surveying his handiwork. “Perfect.”
Thick foliage of a nearby maple tree kept them mostly in the shadows, but flickering illumination from the corner streetlight spotlighted her face, just like he’d planned, strobing through fluttering leaves, silvering the wet paths tracking down each of her cheeks. He’d arranged her pale limbs into the position he desired, like a life-sized Barbie doll: bendable, pliant. Presentation was everything.
“Hush, little baby. Don’t say a word,” he whisper-sang under his breath, staring into the frantic gaze below him, eyes that were wide with the silent scream her lips couldn’t muster. His finger stroked along the side of her head, down her long pale neck to the edge of her blouse, arranging the collar just so. “Mama’s going to buy you a mockingbird.” He closed his eyes, concentrating on the feeling of his fingers closing around the warm malleable neck, tight, tighter. He continued humming the sing-song tune while his fingers squeezed deep into flesh, bruising, crushing, feeling the rapid throb of pulse grow fainter and fainter, until it stopped altogether.
When there was nothing left, he blended into the darkness like another shadow.
Author bio:
Leanna Sain earned her BA from the University of South Carolina, before moving back to the mountains of NC. Her Southern suspense or “GRIT-lit,” showcases her plot-driven method that successfully rolls elements of best-selling authors Mary Kay Andrews, Nicholas Sparks, and Jan Karon all together, making it her own. She loves leading discussion groups and book clubs. For more information or to contact her, visit: www.LeannaSain.com
Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hush-Leanna-Sain/dp/1645262502/ref=sr_1_1?
Why I wrote this book:
The idea of a serial killer using the verses of the lullaby, “Hush, Little Baby” as a blueprint for his murders had been banging around in my brain for a while, but it wasn’t until my mother moved into the final stages of Alzheimer’s that I actually started writing it. Watching Mama struggle caused me a lot of pain, anger, confusion and frustration. I needed a way to funnel those emotions. I decided to make my main character’s mother have Alzheimer’s so that we could travel this road together. It was a sort of therapy and it really helped. I was able to weave some of the things my mother said and did right into the story. When Mama died a little over a year ago, I decided that I’d donate my royalties to Alzheimer’s research to honor her. Hopefully, someday soon, they’ll find a cure for this horrible disease so that other families won’t have to go through what mine did.
