fuonlyknew

Welcome to my Saturday Screams!

With Halloween fast approaching, I’ve amassed a bunch of creepy stories to share with you.

Recently I showcased several books I won from Michael Phillip Cash and I asked you to help me choose which order I should review them in.

The Flip was the top choice and you can read my review HERE.

Next up was The After House. Check out my review HERE.

Now for your next choice, The Hanging Tree.

Come on in and get your scare on!

The Hanging Tree

My Review

A scary good tale.

The location, Long Island.  The setting, beneath the legendary Hanging Tree.

The characters.

Arielle, a seventeen year old girl. Frustrated and angry at her parents, she sneaks off to the tr to meet Chad.

Chad, one year older than Arielle, is there for her. Understands her. Cares about her. He meets her under the tree.

The tree.

A local legend and truly haunted.

The inhabitants of the tree.

Spirits, young and old, angry and sad, despairing and hopeful.

And one more thing. Watch out for the cat!

This was a short story but so well written. The characters, alive and dead, were so captivating. Arielle and Chad had me feeling their pain, their hope. And the spirits in the tress. Well, most of them really creeped me out.

How the author presents the spirits and their ties to the Hanging Tree is quite creative and eerie. Now I look twice when I see one of the massive Live Oaks that grow everywhere in the south. Their twisted branches, some growing right along ground are how I pictured the Hanging Tree. I wonder if they have spirits lingering, attaching to those branches, just waiting for someone to come along.

I still think about this story. About choices I’ve made. About choices I will make in the future.

5 Stars

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Synopsis

Enter a world where spirits roam the earth in Michael Phillip Cash’s haunting new novella, The Hanging Tree. Set amid the eerie backdrop of Long Island, an area famously steeped in old legend, two young would-be lovers contemplate their future while visits from those who have come before them reveal the lure of fate…and the power of free will. At seventeen years old, Arielle’s relationship with her parents is slowly deteriorating. Angry and defiant, she is at a loss on how to cope with the tumultuous situation in which she finds herself. Arielle’s only comfort is Chad, an eighteen-year-old young man who seems to truly understand her struggles. Arielle and Chad meet beneath the low-hanging branches of what the local community has nick-named the “Hanging Tree”. An ancient and majestic landmark, it has long been rumored that the tree is haunted by ghosts. These ghosts span various centuries and vary wildly in age, but each one of them has one thing in common: their deaths are all somehow connected to the tree itself. As Arielle and Chad commiserate over their current situation and their precarious nature of their future, the spectral inhabitants of the Hanging Tree witness their conversation. One by one,the ghosts begin reminiscing about their own lives-and deaths- as they examine the inner demons with which their human forms long struggled. An eerie meditation on the oft-overlooked power of choice, Cash’s The Hanging Tree will stay with readers long after they turn out the light.

Trailer

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Be sure to stop back by for next Saturday’s choice.

And thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew!