Spotlight & Giveaway: Bittersweet in the Hollow by Kate pearsall

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Kate pearsall’s new release: Bittersweet in the Hollow

In this beautifully dark and enthralling YA, four sisters with unusual talents investigate a mysterious disappearance in their secluded Appalachian town.

 
In rural Caball Hollow, surrounded by the vast National Forest, the James women serve up more than fried green tomatoes at the Harvest Moon diner, where the family recipes are not the only secrets.

Like her sisters, Linden was born with an unusual ability. She can taste what others are feeling, but this so-called gift soured her relationship with the vexingly attractive Cole Spencer one fateful night a year ago . . . A night when Linden vanished into the depths of the Forest and returned with no memories of what happened, just a litany of questions—and a haze of nightmares that suggest there’s more to her story than simply getting lost.

Now, during the hottest summer on record, another girl in town is gone, and the similarities to last year’s events are striking. Except, this time the missing girl doesn’t make it home, and when her body is discovered, the scene unmistakably spells murder.

As tempers boil over, Linden enlists the help of her sisters to find what’s hiding in the forest . . . before it finds her. But as she starts digging for truth—about the Moth-Winged Man rumored to haunt the Hollow, about her bitter rift with Cole, and even about her family—she must question if some secrets are best left buried.
 
For fans of House of Hollow and Wilder Girls!

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Bittersweet in the Hollow 

Chapter Three:

Today is exactly one year from the day I went missing. By the time Mama flips the sign on the door of the diner to closed, I’ve already reached the limit of my antiperspirant and my nerves are fully fried. The whispers and the curious stares cast my way throughout the day prove no one has forgotten what happened, but work isn’t even close to over. It’s the biggest night of the year in Caball Hollow. The Moth Festival is a celebration born in part from one of the town’s oldest fears. The legend of the Moth- Winged Man is whispered over campfires and into the ears of children up past their bedtimes. Set to the creak of a porch swing or the tap of rain against a metal roof, it’s the tale of a mysterious creature— the sight of which is a sure sign of impending death— that haunts the Forest and travels on moonlight.31 The festival itself is so old no one remembers exactly how it began, but it’s always held on the summer solstice, the day with the longest period of light. A date chosen as a precaution against the nocturnal Moth- Winged Man, maybe. Or is it something else? The old ways teach that the solstice is liminal, a time between time, as we shift from days growing longer to shorter. A time when magic weighs heavy in the air and the line between the known world and the unknown blurs. According to legend, the white moths that appear on the night of the solstice are the spirits of our lost loved ones, come to say hello. But there’s an old rhyme we learn as children: Moth of white, loved one in flight; moth of red, you’ll soon be dead. The Moth- Winged Man appears some- times as a red moth that flies in through an open window and lands on the person marked for death. And other times— worse times— he comes as a man with the wings of a moth. He comes as a warning of a violent and tragic death. Maybe that’s why we still celebrate, year after year, like an offering to a vengeful god. Mama catches hold of my hand before I can follow the others out the Harvest Moon’s back door. When I look at her, I know what she’s going to say from the tightness around her mouth. “You can go home if you want. You don’t have to work the festival. Everyone will understand.” I stare back at her bleakly. That everyone will note my absence and pity me is exactly why I can’t skip out tonight. “No, I want to go. I should try to talk to Dahlia, like you said.”
She studies me a moment more, just long enough that I start to worry she’ll insist I go home where it’s safe. Finally, she squeezes my hand. “If you’re sure.”
Our festival booth is set up in the center of town, a small white tent above folding tables covered in white cloth with a garland of cedar boughs and eucalyptus swagged across the front to keep the bugs away. It’s one of many booths that line the sides of the street with café-style lights strung in between, leading to the stage where a handful of middling local bands will take turns playing later in the evening.
“Hey, where are the porta potties?” a man wearing a head¬band with giant, feathery moth antennae asks, and I point him toward the school parking lot at the other end of town.
Caball Hollow isn’t big enough to attract many tourists, but those we do get come tonight. All because twenty years ago, reported sightings of the Moth-Winged Man made the local news and suddenly the town’s oldest fear became its biggest claim to fame. It still draws in those who want to believe there’s something more than their everyday lives, despite the fact that saying you’d seen the Moth-Winged Man now would be like declaring you’d spotted Bigfoot—likely to be met with laughter at your expense.
Beyond the stage, where the lone road into Caball Hollow dead-ends, is the National Forest. But it isn’t only there. At nearly one million acres, it surrounds us, pushing in on three sides like a beast cornering its prey. The Appalachian Mountain range forms its spine. Its muscle and sinew are rocky crevices, steep passes, dense woods, and thick underbrush. And at its center, its very heart is a mystery, massive, shifting, and unknowable.
It’s there, deep inside the hidden places, where the Moth-Winged Man is said to make his home. When we were little, tales of the monster terrified me, but they thrilled Rowan. Maybe it’s innate in some of us to be drawn to the unknown, to both fear and desire it in equal parts. She’d tease me relentlessly, hiding dead moths under my pillow and tickling a blade of switchgrass against my skin like the brush of a wing, all while filling my head with the most lurid tales she could imagine until I’d run crying to Mama.
I glance over at her now and find her already watching me, a crease between her brows. “Why don’t you stay here and help ring up orders tonight?” she suggests. There won’t be any jokes about the Moth-Winged Man this year.
“Sure,” I agree, with a small smile that feels as uneasy as it must look. My gaze slides over her shoulder toward the Forest, straining to see as far into the dense woods as I can. When the crisscrossing branches and shadows trick my eyes into seeing movement that makes my heartbeat falter, I turn away.
Spread out on the table in front of me are infusions, tonics, tinctures, teas, and balms, the recipes of which have been passed down through the women in our family for generations, just like those for green tomato preserves and chowchow relish. Each bottle is labeled with its purpose and key ingredients. Gran still uses the old folk names for the plants to keep our traditions alive. Or maybe it’s just good marketing. Rattleweed for black cohosh (to relieve menstrual cramps), serpent’s tongue for trout lily (to clear up skin ailments), cranesbill for wild geranium (to reduce inflammation), and newt’s eye for black mustard (to soothe a cold) certainly sound magical compared to their more mundane counterparts.
Across the tent, Gran works the little portable grill while Mama dishes up slaw dogs, pork sandwiches, and tiny golden solstice cakes. I baked them before the diner opened this morning with lemon zest, a little ginger, and some of Sorrel’s honey. Underneath the table, Gran has a stash of her secret merchandise for special customers: dandelion wine, known to help wishes come true, and apple pie moonshine, which can grant clarity in small doses yet completely obliterate it in larger ones.
After a few hours and a steady stream of customers, Juniper drops a crown made of cedar onto my head before she and Rowan set off toward the stage, their arms lined with more to sell. The Moth-Winged Man may be nothing but a folktale, but it’s still our protection charms that sell out first, the cedar crowns and the yarrow sachets, black tourmaline crystals, and tiger’s-eye bracelets. After all, why tempt fate?
From across the street, Wavelene Edgar approaches the booth like it’s against her will. “Do y’all have some of that willow bark cream?” Her face, which always looks a bit like uncooked biscuit dough, twists in distaste. “I don’t know how y’all do it, but it’s the only thing that works my joints.” Her words are pleasant enough, but underneath there’s a hint of something rancid and acidic, like sour milk.
“Sure thing.” Sorrel plucks a jar from the display on the table and wraps it in paper as I ring up the order on the tablet.
Wavelene is careful not to accidentally brush Sorrel’s hand as she takes the package. Once she moves on to a booth selling T-shirts down the street, I can no longer hold my tongue.
“If she thinks we’re so awful, why doesn’t she take her business to the corner drugstore?”
Sorrel and Mama exchange a look, and I know immediately that I’m overreacting, but it only serves to make me angrier.
“She seemed fine to me,” Sorrel says with a shrug.
I untie my apron and pull it off, getting even more frustrated when the strap catches on my hair. “That was our last jar of willow bark cream. I’ll go grab another box from the truck.”
Mama looks like she wants to stop me, but she nods. “Don’t be long.”
It’s not just Wavelene; she’s not even the worst. But no one else seems to see it, the strange sort of way people look at us from the corner of their eyes sometimes. Or when they come to us for a tonic or tincture, something to help them, and buried deep down underneath the surface, where maybe they’re not even aware of it, is a little kernel of fear and disgust. People like her are the reason we keep the full truth of our abilities a secret.
How strange it is to be born and live somewhere our whole lives, to have roots here, and yet be made to feel we don’t belong. To be outsiders in the only home we’ve ever known. Could that be the true story of the first James woman all those generations ago: not someone who closed herself off from others, but someone who was shut out? Maybe that’s our family legacy.
I used to dream of owning a bakery, maybe starting out with a little counter at the diner to sell my baked goods. But that was before I realized maybe people were right to feel the way they do about me. Before I realized how much of a violation my ability can be.
I’m only halfway back to where the truck is parked by the diner when two older ladies hurriedly cut across the street in front of me, both glancing over their shoulders and whispering to each other. “That’s Amos McCoy. Can you believe he’d come here of all places?” the first woman says. “Him walking around free all these years doesn’t mean we forgot.”
“Murderer,” the second one spits in a tone clearly meant to carry. “He has a lot of gall, showing his face in town, mixing with good, normal folks.”
When they pass by, I see it’s the man from the cemetery, still in his funeral suit, still hunched in on himself, turning down the alley toward the Pub and Grub. I’m thrown for a moment by the vitriol before I connect the dots. McCoy was the last name of the little boy who disappeared without a trace about twenty years ago or so. The reason those sightings of the Moth-Winged Man became newsworthy.
Those who had claimed to see the Moth-Winged Man probably would have been dismissed as tippling fools back then too, if not for Elam McCoy’s disappearance during a family fishing trip on the Teays River inside the National Forest. The story has been retold and altered and embellished among the young and foolish of Caball Hollow so many times, it’s become something of an urban legend. No trace of him was ever found, and the case remains unsolved. Except for in the court of public opinion, which has clearly tried and convicted the boy’s father based on, from what I can tell, merely the fact that he was the last one to see the boy alive. But lord, does this town love to gossip.
“Caball Hollow is a town that honors its history.” A voice crackles through a speaker as I near the stage. “Like the very first families who founded this town, we come together to celebrate the Moth-Winged Man festival today. This scholarship was created to ensure our younger generations remember that history. And while the projects were all exemplary, one stood out as the very best. So without further ado . . .” The school superintendent, a man with a shiny bald spot and a thick mustache, signals to the band setting up behind him to play a drumroll. “This year’s Moth Queen is Maude Parrish!”
Dahlia stands above the crowd in a diaphanous white dress. Maude bends her knees slightly so Dahlia can place the crown on her head and I hesitate. I told Mama I’d talk to Dahlia, but now I’m not so sure. What’s the point in rekindling a friendship when it’s best for everyone if I keep my distance?

Excerpt. ©Kate pearsall. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: 3 Copies of Bittersweet in the Hollow, open to US residents only.

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Meet the Author:

Kate Pearsall developed a love for storytelling at a young age, often spinning tales of magical worlds and exciting adventures with her sisters. When she’s not writing, she can be found willfully indulging her curiosity by disappearing into museums, exploring new places, and becoming deeply submerged into obscure topics that inevitably make their way into future work.

Where to Buy: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/707773/bittersweet-in-the-hollow-by-kate-pearsall/