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"""Carolyn Jack delivers a powerful story of family and the trauma of familial dysfunction that can span generations. In beautifully rendered prose, she reminds us of the essential role the arts and creative expression play in making us fully human. This tale of love, loss, and human frailty will stay with you long after the last page."" John Grogan, international bestselling author of Marley & Me: Life and love with the world's worst dog and the memoir The Longest Trip Home ""How she can write! Here are grandeur and piercing moral insight. A very promising start to what will be a great career."" Benjamin Taylor, author of Chasing Bright Medusas: A Life of Willa Cather and Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth ""A lush, elegant aria of a novel, The Changing of Keys will transport--with gorgeous, tender lyricism--the reader into the mind of a musical prodigy in search of meaning.... David Copperfield meets Norwegian Wood, this novel will break your heart only to mend it in startling and marvelous ways."" Naheed Phiroze Patel, author of A Mirror Made of Rain ""Remarkable ... I could hardly put it down. It's so infused with feeling, atmosphere and texture, and the innovative way of transitioning from father to daughter is as surreal as it is captivating. I am completely gobsmacked by the poetry and pertinent detail of the writing."" Donald Rosenberg, author of The Cleveland Orchestra Story: Second to None ""A wickedly smart and thoroughly engaging writer, Jack writes with verve. The enthusiasm she has for exploring the obsessions and desires that rule the lives of her characters is contagious."" Elissa Schappell, co-founder of Tin House literary magazine and author of Blueprints for Building Better Girls ""It's precisely the kind of novel so many of us are pining for - a modern classic of a literary novel with an unexpected, glamorous setting and a devastating family history."" Ira Silverberg, literary editor and consultant ""With extraordinary literary style, Carolyn Jack deftly weaves the complexities of brilliant talent, the intense pressure of the world of opera, and the dark repercussions of a mother's emotional neglect into a beguiling tale of heartache."" Morgan Howell, author of The Moon Won't Talk ""Carolyn Jack's, The Changing Keys is a bold and riveting story, told by a brilliantly unreliable narrator who both charms and dismays as he rises to fame in the world of classical opera. Chained to ambition, haunted by the past, he is a stunning character, tangled in complexities, surprising the reader at every turn."" Megan Staffel, author of The Notebook of Lost Things and The Causative Factor ""No word is out of place in this riveting portrait of a man trapped by his past and the ghost of a cold and wounded mother. Jack writes with elegance and clarity, and with a clear-sighted emotional force that compels us to care about an intractable character who demands love he cannot return and is gifted with a great talent he fails to nurture, but who remains unfailingly human in the midst of his consuming and lonely grief."" Th�r�se Soukar Chehade, author of We Walked On"

"""An inherited property, a child who sees ghostly presences, and a brooding, handsome love interest make The Inhabitants a Gothic treat."" --Foreword Clarion Reviews ""Readers looking for multi-layered, engaging story lines that pay homage to and update beloved elements of classical literature, mystery and revenge dramas, and ghost stories will find The Inhabitants a compelling read. Castrodale's writing is at the heart of the novel's joys."" --Compulsive Reader ""Take the classic Gothic element of a spooky old house, add a dash of modern #MeToo seasoning, and let everything simmer in the warmth of timeless maternal love, and you have Beth Castrodale's deliciously clever new novel. The Inhabitants, dream-drenched and mysterious, tantalizes and satisfies to the final pages. A remarkable read."" --Chauna Craig, author of The Widow's Guide to Edible Mushrooms and Wings & Other Things ""Beth Castrodale's wonderful new novel is an engaging read that incorporates art, architecture, herbal medicine, #MeToo, and the supernatural. ... The result is a page turner of a novel about deciding what's real or imagined, making sense of the past, and looking to the future. Richly grounded in physical details and keen psychological insights, this superbly crafted novel delivers on many levels."" --Jan English Leary, author of Thicker Than Blood, Skating on the Vertical, and Town and Gown ""Beth Castrodale's moody and atmospheric new novel, The Inhabitants, will have you looking twice at gifts from neighbors and considering locks for your closet doors. The protagonist and her daughter arrive at Farleigh House, the eccentric construction of a nineteenth-century architect, for a new beginning. Instead, they're met by mysterious forces from the past--a fireplace that erupts in faces, an unseen weight at the foot of a bed, and a wave of rage on a feeding frenzy. The Inhabitants, a modern-Gothic novel, reminds us not only that there is a place for the past in the present but also that going back must often precede moving forward."" --Cynthia Newberry Martin, author of The Art of Her Life, Love Like This, and Tidal Flats ""In her beautifully paced new novel, Beth Castrodale gives us a fresh take on the classic haunted-house tale. ... Ultimately, The Inhabitants asks which is more terrifying: the spirits and the strange house they haunt, or the monsters that walk among us every day? Masterfully told and beautifully balanced, The Inhabitants is a terrific read."" --Jim Naremore, author of American Still Life and The Arts of Legerdemain as Taught by Ghosts ""From the idiosyncratic house the novel's artist-mother heroine, Nilda, inherits, to the mysterious housekeeper she also inherits, to the eccentric neighbor who invents 'creativity' tonics for Nilda, to the revelation that the man whose portrait Nilda is commissioned to paint poses a danger that must be stopped, dread and fascination permeate Beth Castrodale's fiercely feminist modern-Gothic novel. But while The Inhabitants is heady and menacing, it's also a tender story about the undying devotion of motherly love."" --Michelle Ross, author of They Kept Running, Shapeshifting, and There's So Much They Haven't Told You ""The deceptively innocuous spell cast by The Inhabitants is like walking in a pleasant wood and encountering a coiled rattlesnake. This well-crafted book is highly recommended for those who love tales of the supernatural. The otherworldly elements are finely blended with life's challenges, the lure of romance, magic potions, and the life-altering presence of evil."" --Morgan Howell, author of The Moon Won't Talk"

Author Information

Beth Castrodale is the author of the novels MARION HATLEY, which was a finalist for a Nilsen Prize for a First Novel from Southeast Missouri State University Press; IN THIS GROUND, an excerpt from which was a shortlist finalist for a William Faulkner William Wisdom Creative Writing Award; and I MEAN YOU NO HARM. She is also the recipient of an artist grant from the Mass Cultural Council.

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