The Gentling Box by Lisa Mannetti

From the Publisher

BRAM STOKER AWARD-FINALIST BEST FIRST NOVEL

THE GENTLING BOX by Lisa Mannetti:

The philosophies of the Age of Enlightenment create sweeping changes throughout 19th Century Europe, but to Hungary's despised nomads, the gypsies, the world is still a dark and very dangerous landscape. Adversaries both mortal and supernatural lurk in the shadows, waiting to strike without mercy.

Imre, a half-gypsy horse trader, understands the danger to his small family all too well.

Cursed with a hideously-disfiguring and fatal disease by the vengeful sorceress Anyeta, he watches those around him suffer and fall. Mimi, his wife, who is tricked into cutting off her own arm to create a powerful talisman. His friend Constantin, struck mute by Anyeta's wrath. And Lenore, his and Mimi's young daughter, who has been placed in the greatest jeopardy of all.

With his health deteriorating and death imminent, his wife possessed by the witch's ghost and Lenore being groomed for a fate far worse than death, Imre turns to desperate measures and a hellish memory from his childhood—to still the sorceress and end her reign of bloodshed. A presence even more powerful and terrifying to him than Anyeta: the gentling box.

ADVANCED PRAISE FOR THE GENTLING BOX:

"A keenly conceived and richly executed cornucopia of the blackest magic. Mannetti's prowess as a writer hauls the reader into a shimmering, phantasmagoric demesne of relentless suspense and high-creep-factor chills, and doesn't let go until the final page. This story is a dark work of art."

–Edward Lee, author of CITY INFERNAL and BRIDES OF THE IMPALER.

"Whenwas the last time you lost yourself in a book? Lisa Mannetti dares you to enter a realm unlike anything you've dreamed of, a world of gallant gypsies and ancient evil, of passionate obsessions … and abject terror. Take that dare. Immerse yourself. The rewards are plentiful. But be warned. Nothing could prepare you for the horror of THE GENTLING BOX."

–Robert Dunbar, author of THE PINES and THE SHORE

"Mannetti's prose has teeth; sharp teeth that grab on and refuse to let go."

–J.A. Konrath, author of FUZZY NAVEL and DIRTY MARTINI

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Lisa Mannetti is a former magazine editor and adjunct college English instructor who discovered she preferred full-time writing to real work when she volunteered to be the family member who cared for her ailing mother. Her short story, "Hungry for the Flesh" (Space & Time, April 2007) was recommended for a Stoker Award. Additional short stories scheduled for publication in 2008 include "The Blow-Up Job" (TRAPS, DarkHart Press) and "Other Rooms" (The Pretty-Scary.net Anthology, November 2008) and "Retro-Fit" in Lovestrology (Ravenous Romance, December 2008). Most recently she served as guest editor for Terrible Beauty, Fearful Symmetry, an anthology scheduled to be published by DarkHart Press in October 2008. She is currently working on a second paranormal novel, The Everest Hauntings.

When she isn't writing, Lisa works on her haunted website, The Chancery House (www.thechanceryhouse.com) and constructs macabre gothic greeting cards based on her cemetery photos. She is also a Tarot reader. Lisa lives in the house she grew up in Westchester County in New York with one highly rambunctious cat—Huckleberry Finn—and two charming and exasperating black kittens, The Houdinis: Harry and Theo.

You can also visit Lisa's author page at: www.lisamannetti.com.

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