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The Clockmaker's Son
J. Rand Beresford reluctantly returns to Pine Haven, Massachusetts not only because of his father's imminent death, but because he knows what's responsible for the savage mutilation deaths that have plagued the community for nearly fifteen years. What's more, he's the only one who can end the reign of terror that has gripped his hometown. But to do so, he risks revealing a longtime secret.
299 pages, Paperback
Published May 14, 2018
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3 people want to read
About the author
Susan Buffum
65 books71 followersSusan Buffum was born in Northampton, MA and grew up in Easthampton and Westfield, MA. She currently resides in western Massachusetts. Her daughter, Kelly, also writes. Susan works as a medical secretary and writes as a hobby in her spare time. Her sister, Lynnmarie May, writes children's stories and short plays. Her grandfather was a great oral storyteller. She has been writing since she was thirteen years old, starting out as a poet, then moving on to prose and short stories and now novels. She is active in the world of vintage and antique button collecting and was the editor of the Massachusetts State Button Society Bulletin from 2007-2016. She also wasa contributing writer for the Bulletin. She collects Steiff teddy bears and big cats, camels, Eiffel towers, antique and vintage playing cards and charmstrings. Writers who have influenced her include Hemingway, Shirley Jackson, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and others.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 25, 2020
3.0 STARS
Pine Haven has a problem. Lycanthropes!
The killings went on for over a decade. Deer, cows, goats and other sundry wild and domestic animals disemboweled and mutilated in the woods, their deaths attributed to feral dogs, coyotes, even wolves. But the campers and teenage boys too? Added to the mutilations were the inexplicable disappearances. It seemed something else was happening in Pine Haven far more mysterious and menacing than feral dogs.
The broken clock was the beginning of Charlotte Rumford’s entanglement in the mystery. While antiquing with her mother during the summer before she started sixth grade, Charlotte picked up the small boudoir clock to more closely examine the ornate hands and hand painted violets and ivy in the middle of the clock face. She fumbled the clock while returning it to the display table with the “You Break It You Own It” sign and one-hundred fifty dollars later, eleven year old Charlotte Rumford owned an inoperative but pretty French timepiece.
Repairing the clock brought her in contact with world renowned clockmaker R. Hollis Beresford and his son J. Rand Beresford. Over the next decade into her early twenties, Charlotte’s relationship deepened and blossomed with the Beresford family, especially J. Rand, who experienced his own attack by the feral dogs that terrorized Pine Haven. Rand knows the true nature of these horrific attacks and over a decade after Charlotte visited the clockmaker and his son, she becomes intimately involved in a brutal life and death struggle with dark forces woven into the fabric of sleepy Pine Haven.
This is a love story, a horror story and a coming of age story, even a love and lust story, anchored by the intricacies, precision, passion and nostalgia of artisan clockmaking. I know Susan Buffum very well through our work with ArtWorks of Westfield, a community-based arts and cultural organization in Westfield, MA and I know the inspiration for this story … the 60-foot clock tower constructed on the north side of the city as part of the Great River Bridge project! I recognize so many other landmarks in this story …. Clay Hill, the old machine shop, Pittsfield and the Red Lion Inn, even the hiking trails and the small ponds where some of the atrocities occurred.
We’ll done Susan!
Pine Haven has a problem. Lycanthropes!
The killings went on for over a decade. Deer, cows, goats and other sundry wild and domestic animals disemboweled and mutilated in the woods, their deaths attributed to feral dogs, coyotes, even wolves. But the campers and teenage boys too? Added to the mutilations were the inexplicable disappearances. It seemed something else was happening in Pine Haven far more mysterious and menacing than feral dogs.
The broken clock was the beginning of Charlotte Rumford’s entanglement in the mystery. While antiquing with her mother during the summer before she started sixth grade, Charlotte picked up the small boudoir clock to more closely examine the ornate hands and hand painted violets and ivy in the middle of the clock face. She fumbled the clock while returning it to the display table with the “You Break It You Own It” sign and one-hundred fifty dollars later, eleven year old Charlotte Rumford owned an inoperative but pretty French timepiece.
Repairing the clock brought her in contact with world renowned clockmaker R. Hollis Beresford and his son J. Rand Beresford. Over the next decade into her early twenties, Charlotte’s relationship deepened and blossomed with the Beresford family, especially J. Rand, who experienced his own attack by the feral dogs that terrorized Pine Haven. Rand knows the true nature of these horrific attacks and over a decade after Charlotte visited the clockmaker and his son, she becomes intimately involved in a brutal life and death struggle with dark forces woven into the fabric of sleepy Pine Haven.
This is a love story, a horror story and a coming of age story, even a love and lust story, anchored by the intricacies, precision, passion and nostalgia of artisan clockmaking. I know Susan Buffum very well through our work with ArtWorks of Westfield, a community-based arts and cultural organization in Westfield, MA and I know the inspiration for this story … the 60-foot clock tower constructed on the north side of the city as part of the Great River Bridge project! I recognize so many other landmarks in this story …. Clay Hill, the old machine shop, Pittsfield and the Red Lion Inn, even the hiking trails and the small ponds where some of the atrocities occurred.
We’ll done Susan!
Displaying 1 of 1 review