My new novel, The Talking Cure, will be available November 25^th. Over the next few weeks I’d love to share my journey into this bit of fiction with you. I found the story by listening to one of The Big Cinch’s secondary characters, Violet Arwald Humphrey. Although Violet has a strong voice, I quickly found that readers were looking for Sean Joye, the protagonist of The Big Cinch, to have a bigger role. Pitting them as prickly co-investigators against each other as well as the story antagonists turned out to be a winning combination.

The Talking Cure is the second Sean Joye Investigations novel, starting shortly after The Big Cinch’s conclusion. In this excerpt, Violet is a patient at an isolated, upscale mental hospital, but things aren’t going so well there for anyone.

Practitioner of The Talking Cure: Dr. Elsass

            “Now see here, Violet,” said Dr. Elsass, the asylum’s director, displaying a piece of paper on the desk. “This is a serious matter, but—we’re all friends here. And I’d appreciate your help.”

What fresh hell is this, I wondered. The paper was clean and new, while his scrawl was illegible. But that’s not what offend me: it was the rotten smell.

Not now. Just let me get through one normal day. Be reasonable. It’s only a piece of paper. It can’t possibly smell like a dead rat.

But it did. I shuddered to even touch it, afraid of contamination, and couldn’t help turning away as I pushed it back at him with one finger. “You can contact my family attorney,” I spit out.

He made a strangled sort of sound as if choking on his own impatience, and then jabbed his forefinger at the long rows of figures. “Room, board, supplies, staff wages—even Dr. Cole’s professional fees are in arrears.”

I had to laugh at that. “I should pay a man to insult me?”

From outside the office, a squeaking sound approached. The tea trolley. The sound sent a shiver up my spine, and silver splinters spiked my brain. Panic rising, I thought of my friend, Carrie, the head nurse. I’ll talk to her again about all the sounds, I promised myself. And the smells. These latest symptoms of my troubles were beginning to abate, we had thought. Obviously, we had been wrong.

Object of The Talking Cure: Violet Humphrey

I’d been in a fog for months—my only companion the cajoling voice in my head—but the mist lifted on some days. As I had connected with the nurses and staff, I could attend to my surroundings and heard the voice’s demands less often.

But today, the sounds, even the sights, of the place were too much. And my perceptions were all wrong. I knew they were wrong. I shouldn’t be able to smell things I see or have sounds assault my nervous system—to see, hear, smell, touch, and taste feelings about events and people. At least I hadn’t heard him all day; the voice had been blessedly silent, or perhaps drowned out in the cacophony of life in this madhouse. That’s not fair. It is a lovely place. Just not my place.

The doctor hadn’t laughed at my feeble joke about his colleague, not that I expected him to. “Violet,” he said, “Stay on topic. I have important guests arriving—”

“And bills to pay,” I said. “I understand, I suppose.” I gripped the chair arms and watched the odors rise off my medical charges statement, wafting at me on a draft from a window that rattled in its frame from the gusts of wind. “It’s not that I don’t want to pay your staff. Although I do find it unseemly to discuss money so openly. I hope you’re not so gauche with your board of directors.”

An Influential Woman, Backed Into a Corner

I lit a cigarette to cover the stench of the bill and to kill time. My family founded this city, I reminded myself. Well, St. Louis. Lord knows what town claimed this mansion-on-the-prairie. I glared at the loathsome little man, his cheap suit, and ridiculous goatee. “What will they think of you, complaining about every little penny of expenditure?” I exhaled a cloud of ginger-and-pear scented smoke at him. How remarkable. I glanced down at the pack. Had I picked up someone else’s smokes? But, no, it was my usual brand. “Are you threatening me?”

Dr. Elsass smoothed his thinning gray-blond hair, then pushed the invoice back to me. “You’re damned right this is a threat,” he thundered, pounding his fist on the desk, his face flushing then just as quickly turning pale while beads of putrid sweat appeared on his forehead…

I went to the window. There were a few patients, bundled against the wind, which I could see whirling a weathervane on a distant barn round and round, taking in the fresh air and the expansive view of the Illinois prairie from the wrap-around porch. Blanche, a young woman about my age, had set up her easel; it must not be all that cold…

I faced him as he shook the stinking bill at me.

The Past is Always Prologue

He turned very red, spluttered, then grabbed the phone off the desk and clicked the switch hook—“Operator, connect me with the sheriff—Hello, Operator?” Faint static noises sounded through the earpiece.

Turning to me, he barked, “You’re out of here. Today. You can sit at the McClean County sheriff’s office until the St. Louis Police fetch you. I’m sure they’d be very interested in your account of the events last October—”

His words clanked together, steel upon steel, and flew at me, sharp and deadly. The fog swirled around to protect me, catching the threats in a sticky web.

“What are you talking about?” I managed to say.

Amid the phone’s static, a tinny voice said, “Num…Plea…”

“Operator, I need the sheriff in Bloomington.”

“Sir…” Static drowned out the rest of her response.

“Can you hear me? Sheriff’s office.”

More static. I found myself pressed against the windowsill, gripping its edge.

“Dr Cole said—” I will not cry in front of him, I thought, and ran to the exit. What had that horrible man said about me? Why couldn’t I remember more of our sessions?

“‘That what you say in therapy is confidential?’ Of course it is, but you think he didn’t keep notes?”

Magic Versus The Talking Cure

Suddenly calm, I turned back. I’d neglected my magical practice for some time…but maybe it was time to start turning people into newts, not that I’d ever tried it before. I’d practice on him.

I reached out for support, my fingers finding their way to a basket of junk on a small table behind the door: etched stones, small bottles full of twigs and leaves, and a tiny mirror. I picked up a rock and let its cool, strong curves calm me.

A memory, no, more like an impression, sparked. I was outdoors, standing in the mist and examining my hands. They were covered in dirt and dead leaves, nails broken and caked with mud. “Miss Violet, what have you got there?” a voice said. I held a small star-shaped stone. This stone.

Elsass’s sharp words stabbed through the fog. “Oh, no, you don’t. Don’t even start up with that junk.”

I gripped the stone tighter, my fingers tracing its edges. “I never…” It nicked my finger, a tiny jolt of pain on which to focus. “I wouldn’t…” The simple stone lent me quiet comfort, somehow, and power. I was tired of people lying about me.

The familiar voice in my head whispered, “This foolish man will pay…”

“Oh no, don’t start with me now,” I said.

“What? Young woman, you need to hear a few things. I’ve been more than kind and patient.” Elsass was working himself up into a lather. “Oh, you tell yourself you’d never hurt anyone. But, forced to the limit—”

The Use and Abuse of Power

I could see the two of us as if from a great height, the cold stars observing us. We were locked in struggle, one I’d win easily. His weakness, his vulnerability, his softness, his life, inconsequential. My blood dripped on the floor in tiny bursts of power, shielding me from his words.

Elsass returned to the phone. “Operator…” he said, clicking the switch hook. “Damn.” He slammed the receiver onto the cradle. “Put that rock down. And consider yourself warned. Do what you need to do to get some money from your sister, your lawyer, that Irish friend of yours who comes around—anyone.”

I cradled the stone in one hand and then the other. Suddenly, it leaped away, sinking into the thick Persian rug. I stomped out, slamming the door behind me.

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Do you ever wonder what characters in a story’s background might have to say? Comment on the blog. Navigate to my website, click the blog title, and complete the dialogue box that will open at the end of the post.   

If you enjoyed this blog post, you might like to read Setting the Story Seed.

I started this blog thread on the gritty details of the writing process over on my Facebook Author page, @kbkathylbrown, but think I might be better served putting it over here. If you’re interest in following my writing process in an informal way, you’ll find a few posts on Facebook that might interest you. You can subscribe to the blog from the website landing page (scroll down).

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Sean Joye Investigations, Book 2
Haunted woman claws her way back to reality by reconnecting with her magical powers in The Talking Cure, a supernatural Yuletide follow-up to The Big Cinch.

Committed to an insane asylum, Violet Humphrey is isolated on the Illinois prairie with only her own thoughts and a persistent new voice in her head for company. When she is accused of murder, Violet suspects her road to both freedom and recovery lies through confronting her painful past and solving the crime. Magically summoned, Sean Joye skids through an ice storm to help Violet, but can they catch the killer and defy an eldritch horror before Violet loses her tenuous grasp on reality?

“The Talking Cure is a marvelous story—an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery infused with a strong sense of the Weird… and a hearty dose of magic on the side. It’s ideal for all fans of the sinister, the surprising, and the strange.”—Cherie Priest, award-winning author of Boneshaker

And now is an excellent time to read the first Sean Joye Investigations novel, The Big Cinch from Montag Press. In this award-winning supernatural noir adventure by Kathy L. Brown, Sean Joye, a fae-touched young veteran of 1922’s Irish Civil War, aims to atone for his assassin past and make a clean, new life in America. Until he asks the wrong questions…

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Wolfhearted is also available as an Audible audiobook, here.

St. Louis Writers Guild just published Weird STL, an anthology celebrate the strange, spooky, and just plain wonderful stories of our hometown. This volume of short stories, poems, a play, and essays includes a Sean Joye universe short story, “Big Magick.” Joseph Arwald, one of the baddies from The Big Cinch, tells us what really happened to the Ferris Wheel from the St. Louis 1904 World’s Fair.

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The direct link to review Wolfhearted on Amazon is here, The Resurrectionist, here, and Water of Life, here. Thanks in advance.