Gideon

by Kristine Smith, Alex Gordon

Just because you don’t know your past doesn’t mean you don’t pay the price for it.

While going through her late father’s belongings, Lauren Reardon finds evidence of a past he kept hidden. The information she uncovers leads her down a path she never knew existed. A path of spells, wards, and witchcraft, one that her father apparently knew very well.

As Lauren searches for answers, she realizes she’s being followed. At night, childhood nightmares return, visions of snowstorms and fire. But when a woman who tries to help in her search is killed, she realizes what she must do.

Desperate to protect her friends and learn the truth, Lauren travels to the town mentioned in her father’s Gideon, Illinois. As she learns Gideon’s troubled history and the part her family played in it, she faces threats not only from the townspeople. An evil that once held the town in its grip is regaining its power, and it’s calling to her…

468 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 1, 2025

About the author

Kristine Smith is the author of the Jani Kilian series and other science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories under her own name. Her fiction has been nominated for the Locus Award for First Novel, Philip K. Dick Memorial Award and the IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award, and she was the 2001 winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, she spent 26 years working in pharmaceutical product R&D. She was born in the Northeast, grew up in the South, and currently lives in the Midwest.

Kristine Smith has also written the supernatural thrillers GIDEON and JERICHO under the name Alex Gordon.


Photo by Joel Danto/Danto Photography