Windwood Farm by Rebecca Patrick-Howard – Review, Guest Post & Giveaway

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As a mixed media artist and urban explorer with a love for abandoned houses and a big imagination when it comes to the past, 30 year old Taryn has never really met an old house she didn’t like. In fact, she’s made a career out of painting these sad, often derelict structures, to show them in their former glory for her clients.

With Windwood Farm, though, she might have bitten off more than she can chew!

The locals refer to it as “the devil’s house” and even vandals have stayed away from this once grand stone farmhouse in Vidalia, Kentucky. Hired by the Stokes County Historical Society to paint it before it’s demolished by a land development company, Taryn’s determined to make friends with the house and farm everyone around her seems to be terrified of.

As it turns out, though, their fears may just not be unfounded.

Who is the woman whose cries echo throughout the farm and what does she want? What negative force about the house is so powerful that it won’t even allow the upstairs bedroom to be touched? Does the 93 year old vanishing of the next door neighbor have anything to do with the house’s mysteries?

Taryn wants the answers to these and the house may just be trying to tell her because now, when she looks through her camera, she doesn’t have to use her imagination to see the past-

SHE CAN SEE IT!

Will Taryn be able to figure out what happened here AND escape with her sanity and life before the house comes down? Because now it seems like someone is trying to kill her! Using what her camera reveals to her and her wits, she’ll try to unravel the mysteries of the farm and get out before it’s too late.

Review:

Windwood Farm by Rebecca Patrick-Howard is the First book in her Taryn’s Camera series.  It tells the story of Taryn Magill, an artist and Historical Preservationist who takes old, sad, dilapidated buildings and homes and paints a portrait of them, turning them into what it looked like in its heyday!   She is commissioned by the Stokes County Historical Society to do just this – paint a portrait of what Windwood Farm may have looked like in all its glory, before they tear it down.

As she turned onto the driveway for the farm – she knew right away – that there was something mysterious and dark about the old structure. Always having a sense about the places she visits – this one was overpowering to her. As she approached the house she could see that it was tragically time worn and in sad disrepair. But she could also see the beautiful potential that lay in front of her. Pulling out her trusty sidekick Miss Dixie (a Nikon camera) she set off to take photos of the old house (inside and out) – to use later to jog her memory when it came to the painting.  

From the first step into the house she felt that she was not wanted there. Something or someone was not happy that she was there.   She resigned herself to try and win over the house or whatever presence lurks there. She spent the first few days taking photos with Miss Dixie. And what she found when she looked at the photos on her computer was pure magic. The photos showed what the house once was, in all its glory. Furnishings as they should be, décor as it once was, it was like walking back through time.   As Taryn learned more about the house, the more emotionally attached she became to it. She wants to know the stories and tragedy it holds. And Windwood Farm does not disappoint. There is heartache in every piece of wood in this house and she needs to know what it is and who caused it.

This is a beautiful story right from page one. Taryn is a character with flaws yet easy to like and makes you want to know more about. I completely enjoyed the story of the house revealing itself to her and Taryn wanting to know more about the past. The past always has a way of coming back and I believe that through the lens of a camera was a truly moving way.

Reviewed by Erin

Copy provided by Author

Bringing the Ghosts-Gaining Inspiration from the Stories Around Me

There are two things I’ve always loved: old houses and ghost stories. As a kid, our family’s version of entertainment was to load up in the car and drive around looking for old houses to explore. Today, with copper thefts and vandalism that’s probably illegal but back then nobody really cared, as long as you didn’t bother anything.

I loved looking at the ruined homes and imagining what had gone in them, who had lived there, what their lives had been like…The houses often looked like ghosts themselves, just memories of a time that used to exist. They could be big houses, log cabins, little farmhouses–it didn’t matter to us.

I also loved ghost stories. The scarier, the better! My dad called the spirits that haunted the mountains around us “boogers” and would terrify me with tales of ghosts who walked around headless, men murdered for revenge, and country roads where you could hear the loud rattles of ghostly wagons.

As an adult, the exploration of the old homes continued. Of course, I tried to get permission when I could. There are some things you can get away with when you’re a cute 5 year old. Not so much as a twentysomething.

I didn’t give up the ghost stories, either. While researching a historical fiction I came across several old ghost stories from my county. I interviewed some of the town’s oldest residents and learned more about our local legends, haunted houses, and unsolved mysteries. My first book, HAUNTED ESTILL COUNTY, was thus formed. After that, more people contacted me and gave me their stories. I was able to release the sequel 8 months later.

I was very interested in the stories behind the hauntings. Why is it haunted? What happened there? How did they die? Why did they die?

For instance, consider the famous “oil boom murder” story. In that one, in one version a woman opened a boarding house and killed several of her boarders. Later, she threw their bodies in a hole in the backyard. That house is considered one of the most haunted houses in the county.

Then there’s the “ghost in the window” story. The old farmhouse was supposedly haunted because, while her father and husband were fighting, the bullet one intended for the other missed and went through the window, killing the young wife as she watched.

When writing my most recent paranormal mystery series, I drew on my urban exploring and love of ghost stories. It’s a mystery, but it’s also a good old fashioned haunted house story.

Taryn, my protagonist, has a lot of my interests. She loves the old houses, too. I didn’t have to go far to find the inspiration for some of the mysteries though. Although none of them are based exclusively on events from my county, they all share a little bit of the stories that have been passed on to me.

Sometimes, truth (even a half-truth) really is stranger than fiction!

Rebecca Patrick-Howard is a native of Wolfe County, Kentucky. She grew up on the campus of Hazel Green Academy and later attended Belmont University in Nashville and Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky. She holds undergraduate degrees in Anthropology and Appalachian Studies.