THE GIRL IN THE MAZE
by R. K. Jackson
August 25 – September 19, 2025 Virtual Book Tour
Synopsis:
USA TODAY BESTSELLER • Perfect for fans of Alice Feeney, Megan Miranda, and Tana French, R. K. Jackson’s lyrical, twisty psychological thriller follows an aspiring journalist as she uncovers dark truths in a seaswept Southern town—aided by a mysterious outcast and pursued by a ruthless killer.
Now available for the first time as an audiobook, this lyrical novel comes alive in a tour de force performance by narrator Hillary Huber.
When Martha Covington moves to Amberleen, Georgia, after her release from a psychiatric ward, she thinks her breakdown is behind her. A small town with a rich history, Amberleen feels like a fresh start. Taking a summer internship with the local historical society, Martha is tasked with gathering the stories of the Geechee residents of nearby Shell Heap Island, the descendants of slaves who have lived by their own traditions for the last three hundred years.
As Martha delves into her work, the voices she thought she left behind start whispering again, and she begins to doubt her recovery. When a grisly murder occurs, Martha finds herself at the center of a perfect storm—and she’s the perfect suspect. Without a soul to vouch for her innocence or her sanity, Martha disappears into the wilderness, battling the pull of madness and struggling to piece together a supernatural puzzle of age-old resentments, broken promises, and cold-blooded murder. She finds an unexpected ally in a handsome young man fighting his own battles. With his help, Martha journeys through a terrifying labyrinth—to find the truth and clear her name, if she can survive to tell the tale.
Book Details:Genre: Psychological Thriller
Published by: Audiobook: Paradise Press in Association with Fright Night Audio; Print & eBook: Penguin Random House
Audiobook Publication Date: August 5, 2025
Number of Print Pages: 300
Audiobook ISBN: 979-8-218-70529-9
eBook Links: Kindle | Goodreads | BN | Apple | Penguin
Audiobook Links: Audible | BN | Apple | LibroFM | Chirp | AudiobooksNow | Spotify
GUEST POST:
Wait … I Wrote This? What It’s Like to Be Read by a Top-Tier Narrator
By R. K. Jackson
When I first wrote The Girl in the Maze, I never imagined I’d one day get to hear it performed by a narrator of Hillary Huber’s caliber. Just named one of AudioFile Magazine’s “Golden Voices” of 2025, Huber is one of the best in the industry. Her vocal performances have given life to hundreds of audiobooks, spanning thrillers, memoirs, literary fiction, and bestselling authors like Lisa Gardner and Nora Roberts. And now, lil’ ol’ me.
But what makes her truly remarkable, in my view, is her ability to inhabit character.
Her range is uncanny and her mastery of regional dialects was a particular asset for the novel, which is set on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. Beyond her technical skills, she brings nuance, warmth, menace, and humor in all the right places. Listening to her narration felt like being reintroduced to my own book … and to the characters I thought I knew.
In the years since I wrote The Girl in the Maze, I haven’t spent much time rereading it—partly out of superstition, partly because I’m always working on the next thing. So, when I sat down to listen to the audiobook, it was with relatively fresh ears.
Some passages felt instantly familiar: ones I’d revised multiple times or read aloud at promotional events. But others? It was like someone else had written them. A stranger who happened to share my name. I found myself surprised—sometimes pleasantly, occasionally with a wince. (My inner editor remains armed and dangerous.)
Gummy Bears and Plot Twists
Even though The Girl in the Maze is an intense psychological thriller, I always knew it had flashes of humor—especially in the interactions between Martha, my high-functioning but deeply vulnerable protagonist, and her hallucinatory companion Lenny. But what I didn’t anticipate was how funny some of those moments would land when delivered by Huber.
One of my favorite examples comes during a particularly tense sequence. Martha has been shot in the leg. She’s lost in a Georgia marsh, dehydrated and delirious, when she encounters a fisherman named Loren Call, who’s clearly somewhere on the spectrum. What does he offer her? Not help. Not water.
Gummy bears.
When I wrote that scene, I was aiming for something creepy and absurd. But hearing Huber perform it, I couldn’t stop laughing. The whole Loren sequence plays out like a slapstick black comedy—Hitchcock by way of Flannery O’Connor.
I Got Emotional, Too
There’s a vulnerability to Martha that’s always been close to my heart. She’s brave and smart, yes, but she’s also haunted, fragile, and misjudged. Listening to Hillary voice her, I felt an almost parental protectiveness rise up in me. I knew exactly what was going to happen—I wrote it—but even so, I found myself sometimes holding my breath, worrying for her, rooting for her.
It reminded me of that famous story (perhaps apocryphal) about Stephen King watching the film adaptation of Misery. As the climactic scene unfolded, he supposedly yelled at the screen, “Watch out—she’s got a gun!”
Now I get it. When a great actor brings your characters to life, you don’t just remember what happens. You feel it again.
I Enjoyed the Book. Maybe for the First Time.
Writing a novel is a bit like building a ship in a bottle. You're so close to the glass, so focused on the fine (and sometimes tedious) details, that you rarely step back and just sail the thing. But listening to the audiobook gave me that rare chance to experience the book not as its creator, but as a member of the audience.
And to be honest, I enjoyed it a lot.
That’s not always a given for authors. We tend to be our own harshest critics. And don’t get me wrong, there were several moments when I cringed and wished I could go back and tweak certain passages. But for a few golden hours, I got swept up in the story. The mystery. The voices. The weird charm of a fictional island where the past and present collide.
I hope listeners will have a similar experience. Huber’s performance is truly something special, and I’m incredibly proud of the audiobook we’ve created together.
And hey—if you ever get lost in a marsh and someone offers you gummy bears? Maybe just keep walking.
Prologue
She wants to kill you.
Martha’s fingers tightened onto the Pentel No. 2 pencil, clutched in her lap like a secret talisman. Dr. Ellijay picked up the stack of test booklets, squared them on her desk with soft raps, and began handing them out. She walked slowly down the aisle, her heels popping on the linoleum.
Not today, Martha thought. Please, Lenny, not today.
Outside the casement windows, the campus was awash in gray, a silent movie, as it had been for days, suspended between fog and drizzle, the dull light suppressing shadows, flattening the neo-Gothic buildings of Ponce de Leon College like a plywood set. Only two o’clock, but outside looked more like dusk.
The quad was empty, except for a lone figure seated on a bench, a man in a tweed blazer taking notes in a composition book. He looked up in Martha’s direction, then down at the notebook, then toward her again. To escape his gaze, she looked elsewhere, beyond the campus buildings, above the crenellated rooflines.
It was there again. She had seen it before, on bad days, and now it stretched across the buildings, high above the spires and turrets, gelatinous and nearly invisible except for a network of threadlike capillaries. It pulsed and it heaved, breathing, alive.
Don’t look at it, Lovie. Lenny murmured in her ear, his voice moist and intimate. You know they don’t want you to see that, right? Just pretend you don’t see it.
Today Lenny was only a voice, but on some days she could see him. He was tall and gaunt, his skin white and mottled, like the belly of a toad. Spiked hair. Blue jeans shiny with stains. Canvas sneakers, gray and frayed.
Martha felt a touch on her shoulder, jerked around.
“Relax, Martha.” Wade leaned forward in the desk behind her. “You look as tight as a piano wire. You’ll do great.”
You won’t do great. You’ll die. Lenny hissed. S’truth. You’ll die if you even touch the paper.
This was the first time Wade had spoken to her in months. In the early weeks of the semester, he had flirted with her, singled her out for special attention. For a while, the attraction had been mutual. She liked his pug nose, his subversive sense of humor. But that was before.
Dr. Ellijay walked to the end of the next aisle, Martha’s aisle.
Have a look out, Lovie. ’Ere it comes.
Martha tried to concentrate, to review her mental notes. This was the final. Her grades had been floundering—that’s all part of the plan, innit?—but Martha had decided she would overcome the plan. She wouldn’t let them win.
Don’t touch the paper, Lenny rasped. It’s printed with poison ink. It’s like them colorful frogs in Ecuador. We learned about that in Biology 101, remember? Beautiful, but lethal. If you touch the ink, you’ll die.
Dr. Ellijay returned to her desk at the front of the room and glanced at her wristwatch. “All right, you have forty-five minutes,” she told the class. “You may begin now. Good luck.”
Look at ’er. She’s watchin’ you. She wants to see you fail. Touch the frog poison, and you’ll die. Look out the window. The man on the bench, he’s watchin’, too. They’re all watchin’. They’ve all been waitin’ for this moment, doncha see?
Martha stared at the page, paralyzed. She felt a drop of perspiration release from her armpit and crawl down her side. Around her, she heard the frantic scratching of her fellow students’ pens. They mingled with the sounds of the rats in the walls, the ones that chewed at the masonry with their sharp teeth, like yellow rice grains. The other students acted as if the rats weren’t there.
She glanced at the clock. Six minutes gone already. She looked down at the paper and tried to focus, to form the answers in her mind.
If you fall for it—don’t say I din’t warn you, Lovie.
She wanted to cry, or to scream, but she was motionless except for the pounding of her heart.
Don’t react. Don’t let ’em know. Don’t let ’em on to you, right? That’s the worst thing.
She heard Dr. Ellijay’s footsteps approach and stop next to her desk. She didn’t look up.
“Martha? It’s been ten minutes, and you haven’t even started. Are you all right?”
A swarm of ghostly, amoeba shapes floated in front of Martha’s eyes, and she felt as if her head would explode.
“Martha?” Dr. Ellijay placed a hand on her shoulder.
Martha screamed and lunged out of her seat, pushing the desk over, causing books to tumble out.
Run. It’s yer only chance—run like hellfire.
She bounded up the aisle, reached the door, and flung it open with a bang.
Run, Lovie.
In the hallway, Martha collided with a student on his cellphone, texting. She turned the corner onto another hallway and spotted the door to the custodial closet. She tried the knob. It opened. She slipped inside, squeezed next to a plastic mop bucket with rubber wheels, pulled the door closed, and slid to the floor.
In the darkness, she could smell ammonia. She heard the rats scurry around her. One brushed against her ankle, another along the back of her neck. Out in the hallway, footsteps approaching.
Voices calling her name. But Martha remained silent, invisible.
This is one thing we’re good at, hey, Lovie? Lenny said. We know how to vanish.
Chapter 1
Ten months later
Martha sat on an iron bench in front of the Wash-and-Fold and watched a column of ants as they marched away carrying crumbs from the smashed corner of a ham sandwich.
She had made the walk from the Pritchett House to Tobias Avenue in only fifteen minutes, strolling past dew-damp lawns and sprinklers, reaching the business district early. Nothing to do now but wait and watch the town slowly wake up. The morning was hazy, already humid. The rising sun painted sharp, expanding triangles of yellow on the buildings and storefronts.
Martha opened her leather satchel and unfolded the advertisement, the one Vince found on the bulletin board at the Gateway Center. She reread it for the hundredth time.
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
The Historical Society of Amberleen, Georgia, seeks a full-time intern
to assist with book project. Must be bright, organized, and
detail-oriented, able to hit the ground running. Will transcribe/edit
interviews, write introductions, assist with research. Three-month term
with stipend. Assist with book project. Must be bright, organized, and
detail-oriented, able to hit the ground running. Will transcribe/edit
interviews, write introductions, assist with research. Three-month term
with stipend.
She felt restless, considered moving to the local diner for a cup of coffee, then scrapped the idea. Like so many things, caffeine was no longer admissible.
She wished she’d brought a book to read, or maybe a newspaper. Anything to take her mind off the fluttery feeling in her gut, a sensation that took hold yesterday when the Trailways bus crossed the Intracoastal Waterway and rolled past that sign in the grass median:
Welcome to Amberleen. Spacious Oaks, Friendly Folks.
Martha held the leather satchel close to her face and sniffed. The smell calmed her. It reminded her of her father, who kept it bulging with papers as he shuttled between their house and the university. She tilted the satchel and heard a faint rattle from within, a secret sound. The part of herself she would keep hidden.
A Lincoln Continental pulled up in front of the brick building across the street and parked. A tall woman with white hair and an old-fashioned, collared dress got out, unlocked the glass door to the building, and entered. Martha checked her watch—eight fifteen. She took out a mirror, freshened her lip gloss, and brushed a few strands of loose hair from her face. It was time.
***
Excerpt from THE GIRL IN THE MAZE by R. K. Jackson. Copyright 2025 by R. K. Jackson. Reproduced with permission from R. K. Jackson. All rights reserved.
Author Bio:
R.K. Jackson is a former CNN journalist who now works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is the author of two novels of psychological suspense: the USA Today bestseller The Girl in the Maze and its sequel, Kiss of the Sun, both originally published by Penguin Random House.
Catch Up With R. K. Jackson:
RandalJackson.com
Amazon Author Profile
Goodreads
BookBub – @RKJackson
Instagram – @randal.jackson1
Threads – @randal.jackson1
Facebook – @rkjacksonAuthor
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