House on the Forgotten Coast: A Novel

Like a monarch surveying her domain, the house has stood for over a hundred years in the fishing village of Apalachicola on Florida’s northwest coast. She has known life. She has known passionate love. She has known brutal death. But she has guarded her secrets well . . . Then eighteen-year-old Elise Foster and her parents arrive from Atlanta in their silver Jaguar, bringing with them their own secrets and desires. Seeking friendship in their new community, they find instead that the townspeople resent their intrusion. But this intrusion on the house’s privacy also provides a pathway for the past and the present to merge—and for the truth behind an unsolved murder to finally be brought to light. As you strive to solve the mystery, you and the Fosters are forced to address two critical questions: What is real? What is delusion?

Ruth Coe Chambers received formal training in creative writing at the University of South Florida. Following years of writing as a journey to find her voice, she published in numerous anthologies, journals, and magazines, including Rosebud, Water’s Edge, and Chicken Soup for the Coffee Lover’s Soul. She was interviewed in Pittsburgh, PA, on the radio and on TV in Memphis, TN, both in connection with her initial novel, The Chinaberry Album. Her sequel, Heat Lightning, was a finalist at the Florida First Coast Writers’ Festival Contest.