Christopher Ransom Books In Order

The Birthing House

It was expecting them.

Conrad and Joanna Harrison, a young couple from Los Angeles, attempt to save their marriage by leaving the pressures of the city to start anew in a quiet, rural setting. They buy a Victorian mansion that once served as a haven for unwed mothers, called a birthing house. One day when Joanna is away, the previous owner visits Conrad to bequeath a vital piece of the house’s historic heritage, a photo album that he claims belongs to the house. Thumbing through the old, sepia colored photographs of midwives and fearful, unhappily pregnant girls in their starched, nineteenth century dresses, Conrad is suddenly chilled to the bone: staring back at him with a countenance of hatred and rage is the image of his own wife .

Thus begins a story of possession, sexual obsession, and, ultimately, murder, as a centuries old crime is reenacted in the present, turning Conrad and Joanna s American dream into a relentless nightmare.

An extraordinary marriage of supernatural thrills and exquisite psychological suspense, The Birthing House marks the debut of a writer whose first novel is a terrifying tour de force.