CJ Maughan

Eighteen

Eighteen

2018 Golden Quill Winner

Florence Dantes is a haunted woman. Loss, grief, regret—these are the ghosts that keep her company as she tends to her aging mother within the confines of her childhood home. As her mother’s mind continues to slip, Florence feels trapped inside a life she had no hand in creating.

The house is her prison, filled with memories of her broken past, until one night, when Florence decides that she can no longer live this life. But the after is not what Florence expected. Instead of eternal silence and the complete nothingness that she yearned for, she’s unable to move on. She’s forced to wait while she reflects on the life that brought her there. She must reconstruct her past and reconcile it with the person she has become.

Loosely based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, Eighteen is the story of redemption that can only begin within the deepest circle of hell.