The Crying Chandelier
by Connie J. Martin
Only three blocks from my Newton Street house, an abandoned mansion called Elfin Dale became my childhood haunt. Built by John and Alice O'Day at the turn of the nineteenth century, it was soon after sold to the Sisters of the Visitation to become a Catholic boarding school for girls until the 1960's. The property was then sold to foreign investors who left it vacant until the Cornerstone Church purchased the property and turned it into a bed and breakfast now called The Mansion at Elfin Dale.
This photo was taken with my old Kodak in 1978. When I decided to write a YA novel, how could I resist a ghost story set at my old, familiar "haunt"? After three years of research and writing, the two-part manuscript is completed and in the publishing process.
The Crying Chandelier
Though handicapped, Carolyn Ashe is not an invalid. Fiercely determined and a prodigious artist, not even her cruel, militantly controlling mother can keep her shut in—or can she? Just before Carolyn's eighteenth birthday, with the help of her otherwise spineless father, she escapes her mother's ruthless grasp when she is sneaked out of her St. Louis manor in June, 1918, and is put on a train to claim a scholarship at a New York art school.
It is summer break when she arrives to get situated. But she learns that she is not alone. An evil presense stalks her, creating a pull between sanity and madness, life and death for Carolyn.
The only person standing between her and the evil is the handyman, a bitter recluse of a young British WWI vet. He is scarred not only from shrapnel, but also from a dark secret in his past. Hiding from the world at this remote school in “the colonies,” the last thing he wants is trouble from this precocious girl who could get him “jolly well canned” from this all-girls school.
Will he believe her? Will he become an ally as the school opens and the horror nearly consumes her? The Crying Chandelier is a two-part YA paranormal romance novel with complex characters, strong undercurrent themes, and layers of genre (incorporating elements of suspense and mystery). It is a thrilling and unique twist on the classic ghost story.