The Bleeding Door
In 1799, a teenage boy is found dead in his dormitory room at Bethel Academy, a Methodist school located on the remote frontier of central Kentucky. Though the boy died violently, his death was witnessed by no one. Some 70 years later, another young man, one of southern Appalachia’s most feared and despised feudists, is likewise found dead inside a deserted millhouse under mysterious circumstances. Though the two deaths would seem to have little in common given the years and distance separating the two young men, they are indeed very much connected. Linking these two tragic figures are a succession of frontier preachers, a troubled Shaker village, and isolated mountain communities terrorized by witches, ghost “haynts,” and deadly clan feuds.
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Todd Cook spent several years studying the Hatfield-McCoy feud, perusing books written from the Hatfield perspective as well as the McCoy perspective. His family was well-acquainted with a woman who worked as a missionary in the deep Kentucky hills back in the 1920s and 1930s. Cook was also given a detailed account of Bethel Academy from a gentleman who now resides on the property where this frontier school once stood. His previously published books include Uncovered: The Lost Coins of Early America (2006) and the short historical thriller novella, Madame (2011). He has also had articles published in Coins magazine, as well as several published in the Bay Area children’s newspaper, Firecracker Weekly.