Threshing Day: A Novel of Ritual, Secrets, and Reckoning

Every year, the bells ring. Every year, the town gathers. And every year, someone pays the price for keeping Morrowfield's darkest secret buried. When Elise Venn returns home after her mother's death, she expects grief, old memories, and the familiar ache of the sister who vanished eighteen years ago. What she finds instead is a town preparing for Threshing Day, an ancient harvest tradition no one questions, no one escapes, and no one dares discuss after sundown. Then Elise discovers the ledger. Names. Dates. Confessions. Families chosen to carry guilt that was never theirs. And one name she never expected to see: her own. As the bells begin to toll and long-buried witnesses break their silence, Elise is forced to confront the terrifying truth about her sister Mara's disappearance, the powerful family that shaped the town's lies, and the night Morrowfield decided that protecting itself mattered more than protecting the innocent. But some secrets refuse to stay buried. Some survivors eventually come home. And this year, Threshing Day will not end the way it always has. Dark, atmospheric, emotionally charged, and packed with escalating revelations, Threshing Day is a gripping psychological folk thriller about betrayal, collective guilt, sisterhood, survival, and the devastating cost of silence. Because when an entire town shares the same secret, exposing the truth does not just destroy the guilty. It threatens everyone.