Thursday, April 21, 2016

The Hanging Tree: A Novella

The Hanging Tree: A Novella by Michael Phillip Cash   90 pages

Arielle Harmond doesn’t know it, but her family has been living under a curse since it was put on them back in 1649. Way back then Reverend Harmond knocked up Goodwife Bennett’s granddaughter, and there is reason to suspect he may have killed the underage girl.

Arielle, seventeen years old in contemporary times, is fighting off her boyfriend, Chad, the hottest and handsomest guy in school. Chad is going everything he can to get in her pants. Arielle is doing everything she can to thwart him. The setting is Long Island, New York, beneath its infamous hanging tree.

But the two are not alone. Sitting on the branches, watching the action below, are the spirits of Goody Bennett and other members of the Harmond family. Goody Bennett can’t decide if she should interfere with the couple, while others urge her in both directions (she should/she shouldn’t).

The plot shift between the present and the past, giving readers a sense of how those that haven’t yet left this earth got there.

It’s an interesting story/ I give it 4 out of 5 stars…mainly because I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted more, especially those souls in the trees. The novella should have been a novel, and maybe someday author Cash will pursue that thread.


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