Devil’s Wood begins when two boys wander into the woods outside Lambertville, New Jersey, and uncover a strange walking stick buried in the soil. One boy feels an immediate, nameless dread and keeps his distance; the other is drawn to it, pulling it free and revealing a grim truth beneath the earth—a human skull buried alongside the object. The discovery hints at an old, unfinished wrong, and a wood that has long remembered what was done there, waiting patiently for someone to find it.

The stick first surfaces in the life of Peter Brightly, a forty-two-year-old antique dealer struggling to hold together the fragments of his life after a painful divorce. As Peter becomes increasingly attached to the object, his health, judgment, and moral center begin to erode. The wood exerts a quiet pull, the past presses closer, and Peter is forced to confront how far he is willing to go to protect his own sanity.

I’m 10 chapters into my new book, Devil’s Wood, about a cursed and ancient walking stick that brings ruin to anyone who posseses it. But why? Where did it come from? Who made it? And can the evil in the Devil’s wood be stopped?

HELP ME CHOOSE A COVER! TAKE THE SURVEY HERE (limited to 40 responses). Cover on the left? Cover on the right? A combination of the two, or start over?

And now …. I’ll be publishing one chapter each week of the audio version right here. You can check back every week, or SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, On the Write Path With Mark McNease, where I’ll be sharing it with my subscribers every Monday.