Clarissa’s Warning
My Canary Island series moves to Fuerteventura for an intriguing haunted house mystery.
About Clarissa’s Warning
A lottery jackpot changes Claire Bennett’s life.
She buys an ancient stone ruin on the island of her dreams. Her mystic aunt Clarissa warns her of danger, but Claire pays no heed.
Soon after moving to the idyllic island, Claire is confronted by a mystery. As the sinister story of her home slowly uncovers, Claire enters a world of inexplicable events and ordeals. Someone or something doesn’t want her there.
But is it really a curse, or is there something else behind the events?
Now available to purchase at Amazon viewbook.at/ClarissaWarning
Clarissa’s Warning contains the key elements of gothic fiction, including: a curse, ghosts, mysterious architecture of an ancient building, a decaying setting, romance, and intense emotions. I also drew on contemporary gothic ideas of isolation and bleakness, setting my story in an isolated and empty village in the middle of a desert island. The one gothic fiction trope I have chosen to subvert is the ‘damsel in distress’. My protagonist, Claire Bennett, is a rational, down-to-earth bank teller. I have a fondness for strong female leads.
All of my fiction contains themes or issues for the reader to ponder. In Clarissa’s Warning, I wanted to raise awareness of a heritage lost through the decay of its ancient buildings.
Clarissa’s Warning is the third book in my Canary Islands’ series which began with The Drago Tree and includes A Matter of Latitude.
Read the story of the making of Clarissa’s Warning, and why I chose to write a novel about a woman restoring an ancient ruin.
Review highlights
“This was the kind of classic slow burn horror story that defines the horror/thriller genre. What starts out as a mission to fulfill a dream turns into a nightmare when Claire must struggle with the distrust of the locals, tales of an ancient curse and mysterious happenings that defy logic. The story flourished under the hopeful eyes of protagonist Claire. Peeling back the layers of this well rounded character, readers will love seeing the complex relationships with her parents, her close knit bond with her aunt Clarissa, the strength of taking a leap of faith and going after her dreams, and the struggle to merge her logical, scientific mind with the supernatural/curse nature of her new home.
The setting really brought this story home however. The Canary Islands take the center stage in this tale, an inspiration from the author’s own travels and mission to bring ancient structures on these islands back to their former glory. Themes of conserving our past, pursuing our passions and bringing the truth to light all shine through in this truly incredible horror thriller.
The Verdict
Overall I loved this tale. The novel soars as a classic story of love, passion and a promise to protect the places that hold our civilization’s history within it. With a heavy focus on character development with light doses of horror and thriller elements, this is a story readers will thoroughly enjoy.” Anthony Avila
