Fen Dead is Alive!

Ain't that a headline?

The latest Groundskeeper Tales novel is now available for purchase!

Fen Dead is the sixth story in the series, and the second novel-length book about the adventures of Chloe Brandt.

You can collect it in eBook, paperback, or if you want, read through the Kindle Unlimited lending library!

I can’t wait to hear how you all like this story, it was so much fun to write. I love getting to revisit Belleview again and again thanks to your support.

How about a teaser of what you’ll find in this book?

Pansies for Thoughts

“Psst... Hey, Chloe...”

Chloe suppressed both her sigh and eye-roll. “Yes, Benny?”

“Just thought you might like to know...”

The long pauses were getting on Chloe’s last nerve. She seemed to be down to only one these days. She attempted to be patient with the ghoul, because taking care of all the cemetery inhabitants was part of her job. Still, he seemed to find ways to get right under her skin, and that was entirely too close for an undead guy whose toes kept falling off.

“Benny, get to the point.” She straightened up from where she had been planting in a mass of annual bedding plants. The cool, damp soil clung pleasantly to her fingers, releasing a rich, loamy scent that always felt like coming home. Early spring in Cincinnati still carried a bite in the air, but the pansies were already showing their cheerful faces of deep purples, sunny yellows, and velvety burgundies that popped against the greening grass.

A pop of color, Padraig said when the flats of seedlings showed up from Eloise’s personal nursery. Chloe joined the gnomes in planting out, happy to have her hands in the dirt. Padraig had become her most reliable assistant since she’d brought the gnomes on board last year. She missed the day in and day out work of groundskeeper, but she did not miss having Benny creep up on her with his drama-llama ways.

“Well, um, you know, the oil...”

Chloe did indeed remember the oil baron’s grave, and her consternation the previous fall when the ghost-animated oil seized one of her tools. She thought they had resolved that dispute. She also knew she should have followed up on it. There had been no time, and then it slipped her mind. She sighed, sitting back on her heels. The low golden sunlight stretched long shadows across the graves, turning the dew on the new grass into tiny sparkling points. Chloe wiped her hands on her jeans, leaving faint dark streaks that she’d worry about later.

“What is it doing, Benny?”

The sun was setting behind her, and in the golden light the ghoul almost looked like a normal person, aside from the way he was wringing his hands together and shifting from foot to foot. A soft breeze stirred the bare branches overhead, carrying the faint sweet promise of flowering trees that would soon fill the cemetery with pink and white clouds.

“Well, you might want to look. That’s all I’m saying.”

There was a movement to Chloe’s left, and Benny, suddenly wide-eyed enough that the ghastly dead blue-white around his dark pupils showed, scuttled away. Chloe turned her head to look at Padraig.

“He’s afraid of you.” She realized she sounded envious. “But me, he pesters.”

“Eh.” The stocky gnome, nearly as wide as he was tall, shook his head. Chloe, who knew none of that bulk was fat, or at least that he was massively strong under his bulky exterior, wondered if Padraig had threatened Benny. “He’s a dull drip. He likes you. You listen to him. I just put my headphones on.”

That would explain it. Chloe contemplated this for a moment of silence. She liked the weight of the trowel still in her hand, solid and familiar, and the way the evening chill was just starting to nip at her ears.

“I feel that a lot of my current situation comes down to being a good listener.”

Padraig chuckled into his beard.

Chloe glared at him. “You’re included in that, mister.”

This sally got a belly laugh out of him, as Chloe anticipated. The sound rolled out warm and rumpled, like an old quilt being shaken out. It never failed to make the corners of her mouth twitch upward, even on days when the work felt endless. The gruff gnome had all but adopted her, and, unlike the rest of his reclusive clan, he sought out her company to have those conversations.

“Light’s going,” he said when he could talk again. “Might want to see what t’creep wants you to look at.”

Chloe abandoned the pansies to Padraig’s tender care. She gave the half-planted bed one last fond glance, seeing the bright little faces already looking perkier in their new spot, and trusted the gnomes would turn the whole stretch into something vibrant by morning. She knew his helpers were lurking just out of her sight, waiting for her absence to get more work done than she could have managed in a week working alone. Belleview Cemetery had been quietly falling apart when she first took the groundskeeper job.