Christian buys a new laptop and sits down to write the next big vampire story, but after handing the first chapter to his wife to read, it's clear that all he has done is turn his vampire into a wide receiver. When you have been a sports writer for years, old habits die hard. It's not until he comes across Rachel Petersen's grave on his new property that Christian finally stumbles across the inspiration for his book. He decides that he is going to tell the story of this young girl.
The novel then switches to Christian's book and we learn that Rachel died during the civil war. It is believed in the small Appalachian Mountain Range community where she lived that she killed herself after murdering her family. When Seth and Thaddeus Yoder stumble onto Rachel's grave, they start a chain events which unleashes Rachel's ghost. Is Rachel the vicious murderer, or is she an innocent victim who wants to clear her name?
The Legend of Rachel Petersen, is a scant one hundred and fifty-five pages long and I really enjoyed it. The switch between Christian as protagonist to Thaddeus was really abrupt and I found it hard to get back into the story at first. The setting completely changed, along with the language, and I was not prepared for this. Similarly, the shift back from Thaddeus to Christian was also very abrupt but I found that change easier to deal with, probably because it was a switch back to present day. The story of this terribly wronged young girl was tragic but so completely compelling.
