It’s not the finished version, but here’s the cover design for my upcoming Ameri-Scares novel, Georgia: The Haunting of Tate’s Mill.
In the mid-1950s, the US Army Corps of Engineers built the Buford Dam on the
Chattahoochee River and created Lake Sidney Lanier, which covers portions of
Hall, Forsyth, Dawson, Gwinnett, and Lumpkin counties. Upon the dam’s
completion, 625 billion gallons — give or take an ounce or two — of water
submerged 56,000 acres of land, which consisted of several small communities,
hundreds of farms, an auto racetrack, and innumerable graveyards. No one knows
for sure how many dead bodies lie in those dark depths. In the intervening
years, hundreds of people have drowned, died in boating accidents, or simply
vanished in Lake Lanier’s waters. In 1958, a car plunged off a bridge into the
lake, killing two young women. Since then, a ghostly apparition, known as “The
Lady of the Lake” — supposedly, one of the women who died — has frequently
been sighted wandering the roadways and bridges along the lake (although I
never saw her). In its six and a half decades of existence, Lake Lanier has
earned its reputation as the setting for grim happenings.
From the 19th century until the lake’s creation, my mom’s family — the Bell
family of Gainesville, GA — owned a mill, called Bell’s Mill, just outside of
Gainesville. Mom spent much of her childhood at the mill and frequently told
my brother and me many stories about her happy times there. And me, I
experienced the best days of my youth in Gainesville at my grandparents’
place. We often went to Lake Lanier, sometimes to swim, sometimes for family
reunions, and, on occasion, to visit the site of the old mill — or as close to
it as we could get, since the lake had long since claimed that land. Several
years ago, on a visit to Gainesville, Ms. B. and I hunted a geocache, aptly
titled “Old Bell’s Mill,” close to the mill site. Plus I spent a couple of
years at the University of Georgia in Athens, less than an hour from
Gainesville. Indeed, I do have a long personal history in this area.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, a family named Tate lived across the street from
my grandparents, and my brother and I enjoyed playing with the Tate kids
whenever we visited Gainesville. They were a fun, quirky bunch, and it seems
only proper that the Tate name should be woven into my upcoming novel. And
thus, Tate’s Mill it is.
While the events of the book will be completely fictitious, they are very much
inspired by the spooky legends that have arisen around the lake, as well as my
decades of personal experience here.
Do stay tuned.