Purity
By Douglas Clegg (www.douglasclegg.com)
Free download
Format: Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Reader, Peanut Reader and Rocket eBook

How far would a boy go to possess the girl he has desired since he was four years old? Owen Crites, a beautiful, blue-eyed boy full of darkness, gives the disturbing answer in the sleek novella, Purity. And it turns out that this poor boy would go terribly far to be with the rich girl of his dreams.

The woman in question is Jenna, a wealthy out-of-towner who summers on Outerbridge Island. The two practically grow up together through the summers on the Montgomery estate, where Owen is the gardener's son. As Jenna grows into womanhood, Owen begins to understand that she is meant for a different life than he is destined for, but that doesn't mean he's willing to let her go. Jenna has just returned for the season with her tennis-playing, preppie boyfriend, Jimmy McTeague, and the trio is soon playing a dangerous game of manipulation, jealousy and repressed lust. Owen may be beautiful, but under his easygoing persona, he cultivates a highly developed anger -- and a cold knowledge of psychology.

In this tightly focused novella, Douglas Clegg (author of You Come When I Call You, Naomi, The Nightmare Chronicles and two e-serials) strips the plot down to its essential elements. He explores Owen's skewed point of view and the differing realities of Jenna, her mother and even Jimmy, while tightening the strings that bind them all together in an explosive powder keg of sexual tension. There is no excess here, only the sleekness of a story as elemental as the sea itself.

Clegg writes gut-wrenchingly beautiful horror, in which the grotesque acquires a sheen of attractiveness rendered in lush descriptive brush strokes. Dialogue rings true and resonates with layers of deeper meaning. Clegg's favorite themes -- painful adolescence, abuse, sociopathic alienation and coming home -- are all at play here. If you've never read him, now is the time to experience one of the most captivating and literate voices in psychological terror today.

Bill Gagliani is the author of Shadowplays, an e-book collection of dark fiction from Ebooksonthe.net.