Driftless Spirits (Secrets in Casten’s Horn)
by Karen Ringel
About Driftless Spirits
Driftless Spirits (Secrets in Casten’s Horn)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting: The Driftless area of Wisconsin, in a fictional town called Casten’s Horn
Publisher : Casten House Books
Publication date : October 30, 2025
Print length : 280 pages
Paperback
ISBN-13 : 979-8231084883
ASIN : B0G11YHMBK
Digital
ASIN : B0FXN5T913
Charlotte Burke can’t shake her recurring dream.
Over and over again she dreams of finding a mysterious journal on a candlelit desk while wandering through a strange house in the middle of the night. Every dream has shown her a framed picture of an old woman sitting at the same desk, except the latest version. Last night, the woman stood and offered Charlotte a keyring. In the morning, Charlotte woke up with her car keys in her hand.
Her best friend is worried but skeptical when Charlotte insists the house is real. The dream is metaphorical, Ivy says, reflecting Charlotte’s restless state. Ivy gifts her a journal and urges her to take the trip her subconscious is demanding before she wakes up behind the wheel. A roadtrip of self-discovery will help Charlotte figure out what she really wants.
Charlotte agrees to the roadtrip but not for Ivy’s reasons. To her, the house, the journal and the woman in her dream are all too real. She sets off to do the impossible. If she can find the house and uncover its secrets in time, she might save far more than her driftless life.
Two Truths and a Lie
(Guest Post by Karen Ringel)
There’s a social icebreaker game called “Two Truths and a Lie.” If you’re unfamiliar with it, the idea is simple. Each person at a gathering writes down three statements about themselves. As the game title suggests, two are true and one is not. The object of the game is for other participants to guess which is which. Curious truths are interesting gems to learn and can also misdirect players from the lie. Clever lies can go undetected nestled amongst truths that subvert or balance expectations.
I love reading books that use similar tactics, especially if the story gets a little otherworldly. Take me down a well-known road past two weird but real tourist traps before insisting there was a little magical bookshop on the far corner all along. Walk me through a World War II battle with strange-but-true coincidences before a subtle shift changes history. True is adjacent to plausible. Plausible is adjacent to possible. Even if I don’t believe in magic or time portals or what have you, I stay immersed in the story if the writer told me two truths before the lie.
Driftless Spirits starts with Charlotte taking a roadtrip and looking for signs that might lead her to a house she’s only seen in a recurring dream. She drives out of the Chicago area towards Wisconsin. She takes I-90 West and crosses the border. She stops at the rest area near Beloit. Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, my family took that exact route on camping vacations almost every summer. It’s very real…
…Until it’s not. Charlotte finds something at the rest area that doesn’t exist as far as I know. But it’s very believable it could. Her route diverts from real roads to plausible roads. One subtle sign leads to another, more and more peculiar, and suddenly she’s in my fictional town of Casten’s Horn. The town is entirely made up but it’s nestled in the very real Driftless Area of Wisconsin. As I live here, I’ve taken my time to build Casten’s Horn inspired by the true history of the region. From ancestry to industry, I’ve tried to make it as convincing as possible.
Casten’s Horn has all the trappings of the type of cozy town found in the Driftless. Homespun traditions, friendly residents and a local police chief all cross through Charlotte’s story. I hope the reader is so drawn into the plausibility of Casten’s Horn that the crime Charlotte unravels there and the secret of the house from her dream are easily accepted. It’s the first secret of many buried in the town. Charlotte will have to use her instincts to discern what’s true and what’s a lie.
About Karen Ringel
In 2020, Karen Ringel retired from an engineering career to settle in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin with her husband. After taking some time to adapt to the rural lifestyle, she started creating the fictional Casten’s Horn, imagining how a small town might have been founded in the secluded valley she lives in. Always a researcher at heart, her books include references to real bits of history and traditions in an effort to enhance her stories. She writes what she likes to read: small-town mysteries with a cozy feel.
Author Links:
Author website, where I blog about my writing and the Driftless area of Wisconsin: https://castenhousebooks.com/
Goodreads author page, where “Ask the Author” is enabled, and I’m happy to answer questions: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/61067885.Karen_Ringel
Purchase links:
Universal Link Amazon Kindle Amazon Print Apple B&N (ebook and print) Kobo
TOUR PARTICIPANTS
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