Known for his chilling Blackwater series, author Michael McDowell left behind the unfinished manu-script for Candles upon his death in 1999. In the spirit of the ghost stories that Michael loved, Tabitha King has taken up where he left off, weaving a Southern gothic fabric of murder, guilt innocence, corruption, and survival, in the voices of the living and the dead.

Calliope “Calley” Dakin is little girl, much to the exasperation of her mother, Roberta Ann, Who was born into the very old-and pres-tigious-Carroll family. Even though she married Joe Cane Dakin, and even though he owns a prosperous chain of car dealerships, Roberta Ann never lets dhim forget his him forget his humble origins. But Calley takes the brunt of her mother's con-tempt, because she is a lowborn Dakin through and through. She also hears things that maybe a little girl shouldn't hear-and Knows things a little girl should never know…

Calley is just seven when her beloved father is tortured, murdered, and dismembered by two women. Calley and her mother find themselves caught up in inexplicable events that exile them to Pensacola Beach , where-in house that's a dead ringer for Calley's late great-grandmother's house-another woman awaits their presence. A woman who knows what Calley is –and seeks to control her. For Calley is a force, and someone wants to use her. Someone who made the mistake of elimi-nating Calley's daddy without understanding that this particular little girl's love for her daddy will not be destroyed by mere death. Nor will her daddy's love for her.

Candles Burning draws you into a tale as hauting and vivid as a summer nightmare-and into the extraordinary imaginations of two most provoca-tive authors.

 

TABITHA KING is the acclaimed author of Small World, Survivor, The Book of Reuben, and many other. The wife of novelist Stephen King, she lives in Maine .

MICHAEL McDOWELL died in 1999. He was the author of a number of popular horror novels, including the six volumes of the Blackwaer series.