Spotlight – The Rexwood Murders by Barron Jones @_aspiringauthor #halloweenmystery #excerpt
If you have been following my blog for any amount of time, you know that I like mysteries. You also might notice that I like to promote authors and their books. This book is perfect for today since it is tied to Halloween! So give this young author a shot, I think you might be pleasantly surprised.
Synopsis
The first novel of the new series “The Rexwood Murders” A devastating event fifteen years ago will catch up with the present and will affect eight teenagers’ lives forever. Brandon Jones hates Halloween and wishes it to end, but when his house is voted to be the place for a Halloween bash, he decides to spend a night in an old abandoned mansion in his neighborhood. Unbeknownst to him, other teenagers in his neighborhood have joined in the overnight sleepover at the creepy mansion. However, the teenagers soon realize that they are not the only ones walking around in the mansion. As other teenagers begin to go missing and bodies start to pile up, the eight teenagers must band together to stop the killer while also unveiling the dark secrets in the neighborhood.
Excerpt
The Big Fire
October 31, 1998
In the town of Rexwood, the aromatic fall smell flows through the Halloween night air as leaves rustle the ground. The streets are filled with playful, costumed children and talkative, costumed teenagers. In a large neighborhood called Meadow-Way, nothing is different.
As Halloween decorations hang on trees and orange bowl-sized pumpkins sit near the mailboxes of houses, the loud sounds of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” plays in a crowded black-colored house.
Inside of the house, there are tons of drunken adults walking around with cups full of beer and liquor. There are only a few adults who are not drinking and one of them is a dark-skinned, brunette woman holding a smiling dark-skinned baby covered in a blue blanket.
The woman looks down at her smiling baby and says “Hi Brandon. How’s my handsome baby doing?”
Brandon simply giggles at his mother, Tonya, who smiles back to her baby. Just as she begins laughing at her baby, the woman next to her interrupts her with a smile.
“Hello, Tonya. How are you?”
Tonya looks at the woman with disbelief and annoyance.
“What do you think, Gretchen,” sarcastically asks Tonya. “You did this to me.”
Gretchen rubs her straight golden-blonde hair down her shoulders as she simply smiles at Tonya.
Gretchen says “I didn’t do anything, Tonya.”
Tonya rolls her eyes and responds “Whatever.”
Gretchen releases a deep sigh and stands up with defeat evident on her face. She walks towards the stairs and makes her way up the steps.
Tonya watches the drunken men and women laugh as well as the sober men and women talk. Just as she begins to get into one of their conversations, something makes her whip her head around in shock.
She looks away in terror to see her husband, Kirk Jones, throwing a drink at another man. The man dodges the alcohol and it lands into the fireplace behind the man, causing the fire to flare up and setting flames to part of the floor.
“Ronald,” calls Kirk. “You’re a damn liar! You know what you did!”
Everyone looks at the two bickering man and look back at the flames approaching them all.
Another woman, Sharon, yells “Kirk! It’s a fire!”
Kirk and Ronald look to the fire and back away in fear. Tonya stands up with her baby in her arms and shouts “We have to get out of here!”
The adults scramble away towards the garage door as the flames begin to set fire to not only the floor, but the staircase. The drunken and sober adults run through the door and into the garage. As they make their way outside, they back away as they see flames slowly engulfing the house. Something alerts the other adults and they turn around in shock.
A yelling Ronald runs back towards the garage shouting “My family’s in there!”
As panicked and determined Ronald runs back into the house, something shocks the other adults. They manage to drop down to the ground as dust and debris flies over their heads. Fortunately, Tonya lands on her back, shielding Brandon with her arms. The adults look up to see the damage of the explosion and witness as the entire house is engulfed in flames.
About the Author
I am a young adult author from the suburbs of Georgia. Growing up with a comedic and often-times crazy family, I developing a passion for funny wits and outrageous solutions to problems. As I became a teenager, I started viewing other aspects of life besides comedy such as drama, crime, and poverty. I began watching shows such as Law and Order and Lincoln Heights. When I started to actually go through aspects in life that at first I only witnessed on television, I realized that people need to read and see things as they really are in the world. There needs to be people who will not only entertain people in life but also inform them of the hardships people cope with. After this realization, I developed a plan to excite, entertain, and inform readers. I started writing with the thought of just coming up with a good mystery dealing with teenagers. After further development, I added real life and comedic aspects to my work. And that’s when The Rexwood Murders series finally started. As you can likely tell, writing is my passion and I love YA fiction and mysteries! I’m the type of author that puts good messages throughout their fiction book so people can not only enjoy a book but also receive teachable messages from it. Through my writing, I hope to entertain and encourage readers to do their best to enjoy life, despite the problems they will face and solve the problems the best way they know how.
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