From a beloved and bestselling master of speculative fiction comes this
chilling tale of a soulful loner who must overcome demons from his past
— and the demons he unwittingly unleashes — when he starts renovating a
faded Southern mansion. As Homebody eloquently proves, no contemporary
writer outshines Orson Scott Card in crafting unlikely heroes or in
suffusing the everyday world with an otherworldly glow.
Don Lark's cheery name belies his tragic past. When his
alcoholic ex-wife killed their daughter in a car wreck, he retreated
from the sort of settled, sociable lifestyle one takes for granted.
Only the prospect of putting a roof over other people's heads seems to
comfort Lark, and he goes from town to town, looking for dilapidated
houses he can buy, restore, and resell at a profit. In Greensboro,
North Carolina, Lark finds his biggest challenge yet — a huge, sturdy,
gorgeous shell that's suffered almost a century of abuse at the hands
of greedy landlords and transient tenants.
As he sinks his teeth into
his new project, Lark's new neighborhood starts to work its charms on
him. He strikes up a romance with the wry real estate agent who sold
him the house. His neighbors, two charming, chatty old ladies, ply him
endlessly with delicious Southern cooking. Even Sylvie, the squatter
Lark was once desperate to evict from the old house, is now growing on
him.
But when Lark unearths an old tunnel in the cellar, the
house's enchantments start to turn ominous. Sylvie turns cantankerous,
even dangerous. There's still a steady supply of food from next door,
but it now comes laced with increasingly passionate pleas for Lark to
vacate the house at once. In short, everybody seems to want to get rid
of him. Whether this is for his own good or theirs, Lark digs in his
heels for reasons even he's not sure of. He embarks on a struggle for
his life — and his friends' — against a house with a past even more
tragic than his own. If Lark wins, he gets the kind of home and
community he's always dreamed of. If he loses, all is lost...
