Lies on the Serpent’s Tongue

Now in paperback, this haunting companion to Bittersweet in the Hollow follows a girl who can smell the lies of others as she uncovers the incendiary mysteries of her small Appalachian town.

Everybody lies. And in knowing their lies, I become the keeper of their secrets.

As Caball Hollow slowly recovers from a tumultuous summer, the James family must also come to terms with their own newly revealed secrets.

18-year-old Rowan James has spent her whole life harboring unpleasant truths--that’s what happens when you can smell lies on the teller’s breath--and building walls around herself to block them out. Like her younger sister, Linden, who can taste the feelings of others, Rowan has long struggled with her gift, which has taught her that everyone distorts the truth, and no one is who they seem to be. So when her old rival Hadrian Fitch shows up on her front porch--bloodied and bruised and asking for the kind of help only she can provide--her first instinct is distrust.

Except Hadrian’s attack isn’t the only strange occurrence. Now small items are disappearing, but rather than report the losses the owners act as if their missing things never existed. Rumors of a new monster prowling the Hollow begin to swirl. But how can Rowan smoke out the culprit in a town full of secrets? And worse, how can Rowan trust beautiful, solemn Hadrian when every other word he speaks has the distinct burnt smell of a lie?

Kate Pearsall is a creative thinker, an award-winning copywriter, and a storyteller. She has a degree in business and public relations and has written for magazines and newspapers. Bittersweet in the Hollow and Lies on the Serpent’s Tongue were inspired in part by a childhood listening to her mom’s stories about growing up in the Appalachian Mountains and visiting family in West Virginia.