Call It Madness

By: Brett Stanciu

Published by Regal House Publishing, LLC, 2026-06-30

Millennial Avah Lavoie' s crumbling relationship is the final push she needs to answer her estranged mother' s unexpected call: her great-grandfather Opa has died. Driving north to rural Vermont, Avah hopes to untangle the murky history of a family she barely knows. Rumors swirl-- about a long-lost farm, a sawmill accident, and Opa' s drinking. As a snowstorm closes in, complications escalate. A neighbor wants to buy Opa' s house and flip the lakefront land for profit. Trina, the neighbor' s sharp-tongued housekeeper, offers rides, coffee, and companionship-- but she has her own motives. When Avah tracks down her mother, holed up on a bender at the Blue Lion Motel, she catches a glimpse of the girl her mother once was: motherless, broken, still searching. Avah can' t forgive decades of drinking-- but empathy stirs.Call It Madness unfolds in the immensity of a frozen Vermont winter, where buried truths rise and endings refuse to follow the script.