NOTE: This book was previously published and all rights reverted to back to author Gracen Miller. Pandora's Box has received a new cover, four new chapters, and the book has been re-edited, but it is ultimately the same book that was published in August 2011. **WARNING -- ENDS IN A CLIFFHANGER**
Where does the road to Hell begin?
What happens when your son turns homicidal overnight and your husband disappears on his way to work? Do you cower in fear or fight for your life? Madison Wescott fights against the odds. Distrustful of a God she doesn’t believe in, she finds herself face-to-face with a world she didn’t know existed and discovers her own soul is darkened with demonic connections.
With good intentions? Or by demonic design?
Phoenix Birmingham bursts into Madison’s life in a whirlwind of sarcasm and sexual appeal. A hero for the masses—and for her jaded heart—but few will ever know the sacrifices he has made or the sacrifices to come. Discovering her entire life has been influenced by multifaceted paranormal beings, Madison is determined to defeat the apocalyptic blueprint fate has decreed, but only one man dares to challenge the supernatural forces manipulating them. Even with Phoenix’s aid, can destiny be denied? Or will demonic design prevail while they pay the crucial price with their souls?
In a small, sleepy Alabama town the battle for mankind’s liberty has begun...
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Chapter One
What the fuck?
A mixture of disbelief and irritation rattled
through Madison Wescott. She considered her son, Amos. The doctor looked on as
if he hadn’t just delivered the most screwed-up diagnosis she’d ever received.
Adamant denial surged in the form of a pounding headache.
“What?” She couldn’t have heard him right.
“Ms. Wescott, all the tests came back normal.”
The physician’s placating voice did nothing to soothe her. He scratched his
chin, and his eyes gleamed as if her child’s abnormal symptoms captivated him. That
possibility pissed her off. Her fingers tingled to whack him with her purse,
but she managed to resist the impulse. “Everything except the anomaly with his
blood.” He scrunched his features as if the abnormality still perplexed him.
“Fascin—”
When his glance landed on her hands twisting
into tight fists in her lap, a flash of wariness became evident in his ordinary
brown eyes. His insensitive choice of words made her want to put her fist in his
eye. There was nothing fascinating about the situation her child was in. She
settled on giving him a contemptuous glare.
The doctor cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple
bobbing, she guessed from nerves after his tactless blunder.
His
bedside manner needs lots of work. She should complain, but knew
she wouldn’t take the time. She had bigger problems than his inconsideration.
Failing to meet her gaze, he continued.
“Otherwise, I can assure you there is nothing physically wrong with him.”
“Just psychologically?” she drawled with enough
sarcasm to intimidate a heavyweight boxer.
“With the right psychiatrist and medication…Um…”
She would not drug her child into a zombie state
so everyone could cope with his condition. He was already a zombie without
medication.
“We think—” so refreshing the doctor only
thought and didn’t have a damn solid answer, “—he can live a relatively normal
life with medication.”
“Relatively?” she echoed, baffled at how the
doctor could think his diagnosis would make her feel better.
“Dissociative Identity Disorders are not the end
of the world, Ms. Wescott.”
Dissociative
Identity Disorder my ass! The new feel-good medical terminology for
multiple personalities did not make her feel good at all. Something else
plagued her child. Putting a nice, neat, medical nametag on the disorder didn’t
alter the diagnosis or make her feel any freaking better.
Although… She stared at her son. He sat on the
table, his legs swishing back and forth like any high-energy child. Amos glared
at the doctor with enough malice blazing from his baby blue eyes to send
shivers of uneasy dread scuttling up her spine. Yeah, she couldn’t deny something
was amiss, but she trusted her gut, and it said something more than Multiple
Personality Disorder troubled him.
Two months ago, he’d been a happy, healthy,
normal child. He’d giggled often and adored his feline and canine companions.
The next day, he’d been mute and homicidal.
He snapped the cat’s neck the first week of the
change, receiving multiple scratches before he managed feline murder. Five
years old, and he displayed a marked increase in strength. Explaining the
violent incident in the emergency room would have been difficult in the best
scenarios. She endured hostile glances from the medical personnel, certain they
whispered about her being a bad mother. She read the silent warning in their
eyes and knew Social Services would be called if it happened again. If she
thought they would help, she’d call them herself. Either way, she didn’t want
or need a repeat performance of the event ever again.
The dog came next. Amos sliced and diced her
with a kitchen carving knife, and Madison had no idea how or when he procured
the weapon. She left him playing alone in the fenced-in backyard long enough to
pour a glass of iced tea, couldn’t have been more than five minutes at most.
When she returned, she found him and the dog on the back porch. Blood everywhere.
Amos’s blond hair had been speckled with the stuff, his pale face splotched
red, and his hands coated to his elbows like he’d used the blood as lotion. The
clothes on his chest blossomed with the substance, as if he’d wallowed in the
sanguine fluid. The smile on his face…her hands trembled at the memory. She’d
choked on a scream and retched over the side of the railing until she could do
nothing more than dry heave.
Amos had caught a fly, and she’d been amazed at
his quick reflexes. Afterward, he tortured it, holding it steady with his
fingers while he pulled off its legs before moving on to those fragile wings.
Stunned by his ability to inflict torture without emotion, she’d stood immobile
until the last moment when she’d slapped the insect out of his hand. Those
horrible incidences heralded the beginning of his atrocities.
Twice he’d tried to stab her, slicing her upper
thigh the second time. As she stitched the wound herself, she contemplated what
she’d done wrong when she hid all the knives on the top shelf of her bedroom
closet. How had Amos reached them? When the gash turned an angry shade of red,
she worried about infection. She’d slathered the wound with antibiotic
ointment, added warm, salty compresses, and luckily, the cut healed after two months.
Still tender, she would wear the ragged scar of her son’s attack for the
remainder of her life, but she refused to give up on him, or allow anyone to
know the total truth of his ferocity. The protective instincts of motherhood
had kicked in. Nothing on earth could force her to betray him.
He’d kicked, scratched, and bitten her more
times than she could count. When each violent episode ceased—sometimes he
snapped out of it in the middle of the rage—he would collapse in her arms.
Often, he dropped into a coma-like sleep. Other times, he sobbed until
exhausted sleep claimed him. His heartbreak broke her heart.
The doctor didn’t seem to notice her
distress—just as well—and continued in his patronizing tone. “This disorder
always involves some sort of trauma, Ms. Wescott. Your frank honesty can help
us determine the trigger and proceed accordingly.”
She ground her teeth hard. “Nothing has changed
in his life.”
Shortly after Amos turned two, her husband
walked out the door. Not a word from him in the three years since. In those
ensuing years, they moved through the routine of normal life and birthdays
without his father.
“I’m sure if you would consider—”
“Enough!” The doctor flinched as Madison came to
her feet with a snap. She sent him a hostile glare, snatched up her purse, and
held her hand out to Amos. “Let’s go, baby.”
Amos pushed off the examination table while the
doctor’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. Her son smiled at him, his docile
expression still somehow reeking of evil intent. It creeped her out when her
baby gave such an iniquitous, yet smug glare. She couldn’t explain the
expression. Something about his eyes screeched not just evil, but also
malevolence.
A pungent aroma that reminded her of rotten eggs
assaulted her nostrils. She put a finger to her nose, but nothing helped
obliterate the stench. It had become stronger lately. God-awful described the
scent perfectly. Madison peered at the doctor. “Do you smell that?”
“Sulfur,” he whispered, his face pale as rice
paper. The doctor gawked at her son. He tossed the chart aside, jumped to his
feet, knees popping, and said in a wobbly voice, “Ms. Wescott, I don’t think
you should walk out that door.” He stared at Amos, not sparing her a single
glance through his statement.
The doctor’s hands shook, and fear parted his
mouth. Wondering at his sudden alarm, she peeked at Amos. A fiery orange glow
surrounded the outer perimeter of his blue eyes. The color arrived with each of
his violent episodes. The child blinked, and the color dissipated.
“We really must put him somewhere we can watch
him around the clock and run tests, so we can find out what’s causing his
problem.”
Her narrow-eyed gaze snapped to him. “No.” More
tests with no answers weren’t an option. As long as she breathed, her son would
never become a lab rat. “He does not leave me. Ever.”
Anyone who tried to take him would be a dead
man.
BIO:
Gracen
is a hopeless daydreamer masquerading as a “normal” person in southern society.
When not writing, she’s a full-time basketball/lacrosse/guitar mom for her two
sons and a devoted wife to her real-life hero-husband of over twenty years. She
has an unusual relationship with her muse, Dom, but credits all her creative
success to his brilliant mind. She’s addicted to writing, paranormal romance
novels and movies, Alabama football, and coffee...addictions are not
necessarily in order of priority. She’s convinced coffee is nectar from the
gods and when blending coffee and writing together it generates the perfect
creative merger. Many of her creative worlds are spawned from coffee highs and
Dom’s aggressive demands.
To learn more about Gracen or to leave her a comment,
visit her website at www.gracen-miller.com.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/gracen.miller
Twitter:
@GracenMiller
Blog: http://gracen-miller.blogspot.com
Gracen is giving away print copies. Click here --> a Rafflecopter giveaway <--click here
Gracen is giving away print copies. Click here --> a Rafflecopter giveaway <--click here
I first read Pandora's Box back in 2012 and fell in love with the book. As a bonus, I've become good friends with author Gracen Miller after I contacted her to tell her how much I loved her work. When there's an awesome author behind and awesome book... it makes it that much sweeter.
My Review
My Review
Pandora's Box by Gracen MillerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow! When I picked this book up, I thought I would start reading a romance with demonic ties and a human girl, old plots with a battle for ones soul…etc Nope… that’s not what I got. I got SOOOO much more. The story has depth, and it takes you on an emotional roller coaster ride from the first paragraph. I’m in love with this series and any writer who can make you feel empathy for the bad guy, sometimes wanting him to win, has incredible skills.
There is so much going on in this story: Heaven versus Hell, Love versus Hate… anger… passion, all this thrown right in the middle of motherhood! What would you do to protect your child? How far would you let your soul blacken for your baby?
I love the world the story is written around and you get one surprise after the next. On top of all the meat in the story, you have HEAT! Oh, and it burns so sweet. This has become one of my favorite series!
View all my reviews
Thank you for the review, Tina!!
ReplyDeleteHuggles,
Gracen