THE HOUSE BUILT ON ALLIGATOR BONES

Dartrine Beaumont believes her mother's sudden death has left her alone in the world - until she learns of long-lost, wealthy relatives living in Florida. Confused but delighted by the possibility of extended family, Dart travels to her grandmother's stately Gilded Age mansion on Amelia Island for answers, just in time to stake a claim on an unusual inheritance: an alligator farming empire.

Her arrival at Greer House isn't everything she hoped. Without warning, Dart finds herself in fierce competition with her grandmother's cocky heir-apparent, and tensions rise as threatening acts of vandalism escalate on one of the farms. More unsettling is her hostile grandmother's fanatical belief that the danger stems from a curse; according to legend, a larger-than-life alligator hunted down by a bloodthirsty ancestress still haunts the family. Yet Dart can't deny that the farm's placid alligators hiss only at Greers, or that a shadowy figure creeps through the mansion's halls, plaguing her with suspicions that the mythical alligator and monstrous, long-dead matriarch may have unfinished business.

As Dart uncovers the truth about her violent birthright, she faces a terrible choice: accept her place in her family's grim legacy or forge a new path by slaying a different beast entirely.

Sophia Huneycutt is a writer based in Florida. Her short fiction has won the Porch Prize, judged by Kevin Wilson, and will be published in a forthcoming anthology of contemporary Florida writers (University Press of Florida). It also appears in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, STORY, The Greensboro Review, Nashville Review, and elsewhere. She has received creative and financial support from The de Groot Foundation, Tin House, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She holds a BA in English Literature from Davidson College and an MFA from The Ohio State University. This is her first novel.