Where the Roots Whisper

In the moss-draped heart of the Louisiana bayou, some family roots run deep enough to drown in.
Harold Wickham has always been a practical man, proud of his hard-won life with his wife, Tasmine. But when he agrees to drive her younger sister, Nakya, back to her childhood home in Canebrulay, he steps into a world where the line between nightmare and reality dissolves.
The Thibodeaux house is more than a mansion; it's a living, breathing entity built on a foundation of old money and older magic. Its walls pulse with secrets, and in its shadows, Harold's deepest desires are twisted into terrifying visions. He sees a woman who is not Nakya, a creature with too many eyes, and a haunting that wears his mother-in-law's face.
As a malevolent fog descends and the townsfolk—marked with cryptic symbols—begin to circle with hungry eyes, Harold must uncover the truth behind the Thibodeaux family's dark bargain. To save Nakya and himself, he will have to confront not only the monsters in the swamp but also the forbidden yearnings in his own heart. Because in Canebrulay, the past isn't dead. It's buried in the black soil, and its roots are whispering his name.
A chilling Southern Gothic masterpiece, Where the Roots Whisper is a tale of legacy, lust, and the terrifying price of deals made in the dark.

Riyan Septa is a writer drawn to the shadows where love and horror intertwine. With a deep affinity for the atmospheric and the uncanny, Septa crafts stories where settings breathe with a life of their own and the past is a palpable, often menacing, force.
A lifelong fascination with folklore, gothic architecture, and the complex bonds of family provides the fertile ground from which their narratives grow. Where the Roots Whisper is a culmination of this passion, inviting readers into a humid, moss-drenched world where every desire has a cost and every family tree has roots tangled with secrets.
Riyan Septa currently resides in the American South, where the history is thick and the stories are never far from the surface.