The Two Deaths of Ezekiel Moseley by Ambrose Stolliker

A wounded soldier returns from the battlefield—but is it truly him or has someone or something else come home in his stead? Virginia. May 1864. The Northern and Southern states have been engaged in a bloody civil war for three years, leaving thousands wounded, dead, or missing. When Confederate Lieutenant Ezekiel Moseley returns home from the horrific Battle of the Wilderness, his wife Rachel and young son Matthias believe their prayers have at last been answered. Wounded but alive, his return should be a blessing. All, however, is not as it seems. The man who crosses their threshold is not the warm and indulgent husband and father they remember. Where once there was gentleness, now there is cruelty. Where once there was love, now there is something darker—something watching, waiting, and barely restrained beneath the surface. As fear replaces hope, Rachel is forced to confront an unthinkable possibility: the war did not simply change Ezekiel—it has taken him from her and Matthias entirely. But if the man in their home is not Ezekiel, then who—or what—is he? And more importantly… what does it want? Set against the grim backdrop of the American Civil War, The Two Deaths of Ezekiel Moseley is a haunting tale of identity, trauma, and the horrors that follow men home from the battlefield—sometimes wearing their skin.