THE GIRLS IN THE STILT HOUSE

Set in 1920s Mississippi in a stilt house on a remote swamp, two hardscrabble teenage girls from opposite sides of the racial divide find themselves cast in an unlikely partnership through murder.

In the tradition of Where the Crawdads Sing and the work of Harper Lee, Kelly Mustian's NIGHT SONG OF THE SWAMP is harrowing, lush, richly imagined, page-turning, southern gothic debut. Ada, pregnant out of wedlock, the daughter of an evil man named Virgil, and Matilda, whip-smart, struggling to protect her family from racial injustice become unlikely partners in crime. Neither set out to kill anyone, but it is prohibition-era America and illegal booze is big money for bad men, and what begins as self-defense draws Ada and Matilda into an immoral world with dangerous consequences that may cost them their lives.

Kelly Mustian's work has been published in numerous literary journals and commercial magazines including Whiskey Island Magazine, descant, Habersham Review, Mississippi Magazine, The Journal of African Travel-Writing, Mountain Living, Blue Ridge Country, and Charlotte Magazine. One of her short stories won a Blumenthal Writers Series Award, and she was awarded a Regional Artist Grant by the North Carolina Arts & Science Council.