The Roses

When Margaret Whitmore inherits her great-aunt's Victorian mansion on Chicago's Ashford Avenue, she thinks she's gotten lucky. The house is beautiful, valuable, and comes with decades of family history. But within weeks of moving in, Margaret realizes why the property has changed hands seventeen times in the past century-and why no one ever stays long. It starts with whispers in empty rooms and footsteps on the stairs when she's alone. Then Margaret begins seeing them: ghostly figures in period dress, a woman in white who appears in mirrors, and worst of all, the sounds of children crying in rooms that should be empty. When the police dismiss her claims and friends suggest she's losing her mind, Margaret makes a desperate late-night call to Rose Cortez Paranormal Investigations. Rose Cortez and her partner Lana Langly have seen plenty of hauntings, but nothing quite like this. The mansion isn't just occupied by restless spirits-it's a supernatural prison where souls have been trapped for over a century. Behind it all is Dr. Ezra Blackwood, a man who should have died decades ago but has found ways to cheat death by feeding on the spiritual energy of the imprisoned. As Rose and her team dig deeper, they uncover a network of similar properties across the Midwest, each one a carefully constructed trap designed to harvest human souls. With help from Detective Sarah Rodriguez, traditional healer Martha Crow Feather, and an unlikely alliance with other supernatural investigators, they must race against time to free the trapped spirits before Dr. Blackwood completes a resurrection ritual that will make him unstoppable. But the voices in the dark aren't just crying out for help-they're trying to warn the living about something much worse that's coming. And Margaret's house is just the beginning. Voices in the Dark is a supernatural thriller about family secrets, the price of immortality, and the courage it takes to stand up for those who can no longer speak for themselves.