The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess

“Marino offers horrors both existential and visceral. From a stunning opening, the sense of dread just builds and builds.” -M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts

“Odd and dark and fascinating . . . Not quite like anything I’ve ever read before. A strange, compelling, late-night page-turner. It kept me reading way past my bedtime.” -T. Kingfisher, author of The Hollow Places

Possession is an addiction.

Sydney’s spent years burying her past and building a better life for herself and her young son. A respectable marketing job, a house with reclaimed and sustainable furniture, and a boyfriend who loves her son and accepts her, flaws and all.
But when she opens her front door, and a masked intruder knocks her briefly unconscious, everything begins to unravel.
She wakes in the hospital and tells a harrowing story of escape. Of dashing out a broken window. Of running into her neighbors’ yard and calling the police.

The cops tell her a different story. Because the intruder is now lying dead in her guest room-murdered in a way that looks intimately personal.

Sydney can’t remember killing the man. No one believes her.

Back home, as horrific memories surface, an unnatural darkness begins whispering in her ear. Urging her back to old addictions and a past she’s buried to build a better life for herself and her son.

As Sydney searches for truth among the wreckage of a past that won’t stay buried for long, the unquiet darkness begins to grow. To change into something unimaginable.

To reveal terrible cravings of its own.