Kell, her older son, would have sensed it and come home from Knoxville had it been meant for him. When it first appeared, they'd all approached it, but it ignored entreaties from Chloe her husband, Deacon and their younger son, Aiden. As it had done for the last week, the apparition remained silent and watchful all night. She followed its flight and caught the haint's outline as it faded into the dawn. For a moment the bird held her gaze then it flew off into the trees.

The owl's head turned almost 180 degrees to stare at her. The day's events were going to be difficult enough without adding this to it. She began to hum a secret tune for both calm and protection. Water from the faucet ran heedlessly down the drain. So when Chloe Hyatt, a pureblood Tufa, saw it through the little window over the kitchen sink, she froze. It was also, when seen during the day, an omen of death. The bird had a voice far out of proportion to its size, and was intimately acquainted with the night winds that guided the Tufa destiny. The dawn light made the tufts of its wind-ruffled feathers look jagged and bloody. With death stalking her family, Bronwyn will need to summon the strength to take her place among the true Tufa and once again fly on the night winds.A screech owl stood on the porch rail, its tiny talons scratching against the wood. Worst of all, Bronwyn has lost touch with the music that was once a vital part of her identity. Cryptic omens warn of impending tragedy, and a restless 'haint' lurks nearby, waiting to reveal Bronwyn's darkest secrets. But more trouble lurks in the mountains and hollows of her childhood home. Private Bronwyn Hyatt returns from Iraq wounded in body and in spirit, only to face the very things that drove her away in the first place: her family, her obligations to the Tufa, and her dangerous ex-boyfriend. While their origins may be lost to history, there are clues in their music - hints of their true nature buried in the songs they have passed down for generations. Dark-haired, enigmatic, and suspicious of outsiders, the Tufa live quiet lives in the hills and valleys of Cloud County. No one knows where the Tufa came from, or how they ended up in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, yet when the first Europeans arrived, they were already there.

The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe