Solstice Sunrise

St. Louis area suburbanite Alyssah Juliet Thompson knows she's a bad person. Nobody asks to be born a murderous, predatory vampire emotionally incapable of experiencing guilt, empathy, or remorse. Still, balancing ritual combat with parent-teacher conferences as a soccer mom in sedate St. Charles County isn't easy, especially when even your human husband doesn't know who... or what... you really are.

Unfortunately, when someone tries to murder her children, our psychopathic anti-heroine's intricate web of lies begins to implode and members of a seemingly ordinary Midwestern household unexpectedly find themselves pulled into a strange and violent paranormal underworld that leaves them to confront their differences, find strength in each other's weaknesses and grapple with the murky secrets of the shadowy, blood-drinking wife and mom now fighting desperately to keep them all alive.

Struggling to patch up a deteriorating marriage, she and her increasingly endangered kin must unravel an ominous riddle of prophecy, magic and intrigue to stop a sinister conspiracy that threatens millions… including those she cares about the most. Can a duplicitous, morally impaired Alyssah use her malevolent talents to protect her loved ones or will the skeletons in her closet doom everyone?

As recounted by multiple narrators during the pandemic summer of 2020, "Solstice Sunrise" is a richly detailed supernatural thriller which weaves humor and horror into a quick-witted and darkly quirky tale of falsehoods, fangs and family.

David Baugher is author of three books, including "Secret St. Louis," a 2016 work that garnered extensive local media coverage from the Post-Dispatch to KMOX radio.