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A Ghost Chases the Horizon

It is not the ghosts that haunt, but the moments.

Paperback: 979-8-9926451-0-1    Hardback: 979-8-9926451-2-5    Ebook: 979-8-9926451-1-8

 

Exploring the relationship between time and spirit through intertwining stories in and around the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia. The hospital went by many names during its history, and its troubled past is retold from the memory held by its thick, limestone walls.

Weston Hospital, 1999 — After a paranormal encounter in the hospital, an urban spelunker blackmails a disgraced local law enforcement officer into allowing her to continue investigating the shuttered facility. What she finds inside is a kinship that transcends time and spirit.

West Virginia Hospital for the Insane, 1905 — A falsely committed widow gives birth to a child sired by her doctor. Faced with giving up the baby, racist ward mates, and the doctor’s growing hostility, she plots her freedom with the aid of a patient with dubious intent.

Weston State Hospital, 1935 — A ne’er-do-well farmer self-commits to the hospital after an incident at a local funeral parlor. While awaiting evaluation inside the overcrowded facility, he develops delusions that the U.S. President wants him to raze the building.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, 2019 — An adrift divorcee does research at the asylum for a friend’s true-crime manuscript. In search of information on a nineteenth-century serial killer, he uncovers more of the hospital’s mysteries than intended.

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An Appalachian Gothic tale that meditates on love, melancholy, and the threads of individual legacies that weave a future for everyone.

Type: Novel

Genre: Speculative/Literary Fiction

Appalachian Gothic

Status: Complete at 112,000 words

© 2025 Indie Appalachia LLC
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