ABOUT THE BOOK


"It’s like I don’t even exist."

That’s the thought that’s usually running through Mary’s head.

You’ve seen her before: the shy, quiet late-middle aged woman shuffling her way to and from work, doing her best to blend into the background, head slightly bent as if she’s always facing a strong wind. And she’s right: to most people, it’s like she doesn’t even exist. She’s not sexy. She’s not hideous. She doesn’t inspire any sort of reaction in anyone. She just ... is.

But people don’t know about the mysterious noises she’s been hearing. They don’t know about her dreams. In fairness, even Mary herself doesn’t. Or, rather, didn’t. Things are changing.

Mary is about to learn there’s something special inside her. Something perhaps she’s always known but never really explored. Something that will have horrifying, deadly consequences for everyone who crosses her path.

After her world gets turned upside down by an unexpected layoff, she hastily accepts a job offer from an estranged, abusive aunt, and finds herself heading back to the town she grew up in: the tiny, desert community of Arroyo, Arizona. Years before Mary was born, Arroyo was plagued by a serial killer. It’s not long before Mary discovers that the noises she’s been hearing, the visions that are now accompanying them, are all related to this killer’s long-dead victims. Victims who were essentially just like her: late middle-aged women.

What do they want with her? Why won’t they leave her alone?

Things become vastly more complicated when real, actual victims start turning up, and the FBI sends an agent in to investigate what appears to be a potential copycat situation. Meanwhile, Mary finds herself falling in love with a shy, quiet man who’s as strange and lonely as she is.

How is this all connected? Is it madness? Possession? Reincarnation?

Is this something she needs to stop?

Or is it time to give in to who she really is?

MARY is a supernatural thriller about one unassuming woman, as haunted as any Gothic mansion. Part Carrie, part Snow White, part The Silence of the Lambs, it also attempts to explore the ways in which middle aged women are marginalized, ignored, and traumatized by a culture that loses interest in them after a certain point. To put it another way, if Carrie is about the horrors of puberty, Mary is about the horrors of menopause.

The book is told through a mix of narrative styles, including third and first person voices, as well as excerpts from apocryphal news articles, podcasts, and references. MARY entices readers along a swirling and hypnotic journey into the dark truths of a vulnerable, dangerous central character, twisting a voyage of self-discovery into a dark, propulsive, action-packed descent with an explosive finale.

It’s a hypnotic horror story unlike any other, where the scariest and most dangerous place to be is in the mind the readers get to inhabit.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nat Cassidy is an actor, playwright, screenwriter, novelist and musician. He’s the author of award-winning horror plays such as The Temple, or, Lebensraum; Any Day Now; Tenants; The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots; The Demon Hunter; I Am Providence; Pierce; Old Familiar Faces; Goldsboro; and more, which have been produced and developed across the country. In New York, his plays have been nominated for a combined total of 17 New York Innovative Theatre Awards, including 3 times for Outstanding Full-Length Script (which he won in 2009, and in 2011 for Outstanding Solo Performance for his one man show about H.P. Lovecraft) and he was commissioned by The Kennedy Center to write the libretto for a world-premiere short opera (about the end of the world, natch). He also wrote the novelization of the hit podcast Steal the Stars, which was published by Tor Books and which NPR included as one of the best books of 2017. As an actor he can be seen on shows such as "Blue Bloods" (CBS), "Bull" (CBS), "Quantico" (ABC), "The Good Fight" (CBS), "The Following" (Fox), "The Affair" (Showtime), "Red Oaks" (Amazon) "High Maintenance" (HBO), "Law & Order: SVU" (NBC), as well as on stage in numerous productions and workshops both Off- and Off-Off-Broadway. www.natcassidy.com