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Synopsis

SUSPICION is the story of a writer named Emma Roth, who moves with her 10-year-old son and physicist husband to an isolated old Victorian on the North Shore of Long Island. No sooner do they move into their dream house than a series of bizarre, frightening incidents occur. Characters in a computer card game begin addressing cruel personal remarks to Emma. Her manuscript is tampered with, her home invaded. Their house is rumored to be haunted. Emma, herself a writer of ghost stories, doesn’t believe in ghosts. But if her house is not haunted, there are only two other possibilities: either Emma is losing her mind, or someone very close to her is out to destroy her.

To read the first chapter of SUSPICION, go to Simonsays (hardcover).

The Story Behind the Story
Barbara writes:

SUSPICION was born one day when I was working at my computer. Pretending to work, actually; if you must know, I was playing card games. (There may be writers who don’t procrastinate, but I’ve never met any.) In the game, characters appear on the screen and recite set pieces about how glad they are to play cards with me, how wonderful it is to see me again, and so on. Wouldn’t it be weird, I thought idly on that particular day, if instead of the usual niceties, the characters said something personal…something creepy, even? A little flash of venom on the screen that disappears as quickly as it appears. With this thought came that little shiver down the spine that marks the conception of a fertile idea, the kind that, if watered and tended daily for a year or two, might grow into a book.”

Reviews

“…SUSPICION had its way with me from start to finish….Chores went undone, meals went unmade, phone messages unanswered until I finished…. Hypnotic….If you can put this book down before you’ve finished it, it’s possible that your heart may have stopped beating.”-- The Washington Post

“Rogan’s smart reinvention of the haunted housewife, mad or menaced or both, is a honey…. Like Shirley Jackson, Rogan brings sophistication, skillful writing and subtlety to the business of ghosts.”—The San Francisco Chronicle

“Rogan’s best so far…a winning, flat-out all-nighter…Strong characterizations…suck the reader with unerring skill into the joys of total entertainment.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Rogan weaves classic mystery and ghost story elements together with modern computer technologies to create a novel that twists and turns right up to the end… A pleasure to read.…This could be her breakout book.” –Library Journal

“This absorbing tale is artfully told, with cleverly integrated subplots,…rising suspense, and vividly nuanced characters who come alive through snappy, irreverent dialogue.”—Publishers Weekly

“Keeps the audience guessing until the very end…SUSPICION is a wonderful novel …A fabulous book.”-- Internet Book Watch:

“…Fine prose, interesting ideas, and glimpses of the genuinely unearthly in an unexpected venue: a haunting conducted via the computer!”—Locus
 

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