THE GATES OF EVANGELINE

In THE GATES OF EVANGELINE Charlotte “Charlie” Cates, a journalist and single mother mourning the recent, unexpected death of her young son, starts to have dreams about children in danger.

The disturbing images lead her from her home in suburban New York City to small-town Louisiana, where she takes a commission to write a true-crime book based on the case of Gabriel Deveau, the young heir to a wealthy and infamous Southern family, whose kidnapping thirty years ago has never been solved.
There Charlie encounters Hettie, the regal Deveau matriarch who is wasting away from cancer; Andre, her eldest child, with a few secrets of his own; and Sydney and Brigitte, the twin daughters who have their own motives for commissioning Charlie’s book. She also meets the family’s harried staff—including an alluring gardener with a mysterious past—and a town sheriff grieving a loss that matches Charlie’s.

There’s a great mystery here with a surprising but very satisfying resolution—and a real emotional hook with the children in need.

Hester Young is a former high school English teacher and mother of two, living in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, with her family. She earned her MA at the University of Hawaii. This is her first novel.