Archives de catégorie : Fiction

ALWAYS THE FIRST TO DIE de R.J. Jacobs

The Guest List with a 90s slasher edge that begs the question: who will survive when your most famous horror movie comes to life? This book offers a fascinating and immersive look at what it would be like to be on the set of a classic 90s slasher. Perfect for fans of Riley Sager and Lucy Foley.

ALWAYS THE FIRST TO DIE
by R.J. Jacobs
Sourcebooks Landmark, September 2022

After her husband’s death, Lexi has refused to return to the Pinecrest Estate on the Florida Keys, too many hard memories on the tiny strip of land. Memories of meeting her husband as a teenager on the set of an iconic horror movie shot at the dilapidated manor house. Of being cast as an extra, of watching herself get killed on screen. And of scoffing at the rumors of the Pinecrest Estate “curse,” until she witnessed a cast member die that very summer. But when her daughter insists on visiting her grandfather, legendary horror movie director Rick Plummer, Lexi finally agrees. That’s when a Category Four hurricane changes course, and hits the southern coast.
Unable to get through to her daughter, Lexi drives to the Keys in the wake of the storm. What she finds is an island without cell service, without power, and with limited police presence. A desolate bit of land, with only a few remaining behind: the horror director, the starlet once cast as the final girl, the young teenager searching for clues of her father, the mother determined to get off the island, and…the person picking them off one-by-one.

R. J. Jacobs has practiced as a psychologist since 2003. He maintains a private practice in Nashville, focusing on a wide variety of clinical concerns. After completing a post-doctoral residency at Vanderbilt, he has taught Abnormal Psychology, presented at numerous conferences, and routinely performs PTSD evaluations for veterans. He’s the author of And Then You Were Gone and Somewhere in the Dark, published by Crooked Lane.

A VERY TYPICAL FAMILY de Sierra Godfrey

A woman must return to her hometown of Santa Cruz, CA to inherit her family home after her mother dies, and is reunited with her estranged brother and sister, whom she was responsible for sending to prison 15 years earlier. An upmarket, darkly funny family saga.

A VERY TYPICAL FAMILY
by Sierra Godfrey
Sourcebooks Landmark, February 2022

Natalie Walker is the reason her brother and sister went to jail over 15 years ago. As a result, she hasn’t spoken to her family since. On the same day she expects to be promoted at her job (until her boyfriend Paul swoops in and takes the position), Natalie receives a letter from a lawyer in Santa Cruz saying her mother has died and the only way for her children to inherit their family’s large, historical home is for all three adult children to come back and claim it.
Natalie drives to Santa Cruz, expecting to sign some documents, see siblings Lynn and Jake, and get back to her life in Boston. But Jake, now an award-winning scientist, is missing. And Lynn, working as an undertaker in NYC, shows up with her teenaged son. While Natalie and her nephew look for Jake—meeting a very handsome Spanish scientist in the process—Natalie takes stock of her life and the guilt she has held dear for so many years. Though no one can change the past, every day is an opportunity to change how you want to live in the future.

Sierra Godfrey is a tech editor by day who loves writing stories about complex relationships. She lives in the foggy wastelands of the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, sons, and a bevy of animals, all of which seemed like a good idea at the time.

BRIGHT LIGHTS AND BLACK WINGS de Pamela Terry

The new lyrical and warm-hearted novel by the bestselling author of The Sweet Taste of Muscadines.

BRIGHT LIGHTS AND BLACK WINGS
by Pamela Terry
Ballantine, TBD 2022
(via The Whalen Agency)

What happens when we no longer like the people we love? When Marietta Cline falls ill at her husband’s funeral she’s rescued by her childhood friend, Butter. The two of them traveled parallel paths for most of their lives, only to diverge wildly during the recent years of political division and turmoil. Old friends and family members are forced to come to terms with each other and their differences, while through it all, Marietta’s husband keeps watch, waiting.

“A deeply moving work of Southern fiction that will appeal to fans of Where the Crawdads Sing…a story to remember long after the last page is turned.” –Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author

A lifelong Southerner, Pamela Terry learned the power of storytelling at a very early age. For the past decade, Terry has been the author of the internationally popular blog From the House of Edward, which was named one of the top ten home blogs of the year by The Telegraph. She lives in Smyrna, Georgia, with her songwriter husband, Pat, and their three dogs, Apple, Andrew, and George.

FACE de Joma West

Joma West’s FACE is a speculative novel about designer babies, social media fame, race, and the lies we allow ourselves to believe in order to make us feel whole. Margaret Atwood meets Kazuo Ishiguro in this sci-fi domestic drama that reimagines race and class in a genetically engineered society fed by performative fame.

FACE
by Joma West
Tor/St. Martin’s Press, August 2022
(via Mushens Entertainment)

How much is your Face worth? Schuyler and Madeline Burroughs have the perfect Face — rich and powerful enough to assure their dominance in society. But in SchAddie’s household, cracks are beginning to appear. Schuyler is bored and taking risks. Maddie is becoming brittle, her happiness ever more fleeting. And their menial is fighting the most bizarre compulsions.
In FACE, skin color is an aesthetic choice designed by professionals, consent is a pre-checked box on the path to social acceptance, and your online profile isn’t just the most important thing — it’s the only thing.

Joma West is a third culture writer whose work straddles both fantasy and science fiction. Growing up bouncing between countries has given her work a certain displaced flavour and you can see many African and Asian influences in her writing. Joma’s novella, Wild, won the 2016 MMU novella award. She has had short stories published in various anthologies. She lives in Glasgow.

THE DEATH OF JANE LAWRENCE de Caitlin Starling

From the Bram Stoker-nominated author of The Luminous Dead comes a new gothic fantasy horror in which Ninth House meets Mexican Gothic.

THE DEATH OF JANE LAWRENCE
by Caitlin Starling
St. Martin’s Press, December 2021

Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town.
Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man―one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to.
Set in a dark-mirror version of post-war England, Caitlin Starling crafts a new kind of gothic horror from the bones of the beloved canon. This Crimson Peak-inspired story assembles, then upends, every expectation set in place by Shirley Jackson and Rebecca, and will leave readers shaken, desperate to begin again as soon as they are finished.

“A magnificent ode to gothic horror… I loved every moment… Brilliant!” –Erin Craig, author of House of Salt and Sorrows

“A delicious Gothic romance…. It has to walk the line between romance and horror and not flinch away from either. The Death of Jane Lawrence is up to this task…. By the time the book reached that point of no return, I was so invested that I would have followed Jane into the very depths of hell.” ―NPR.org

“Inspired by Crimson Peak, the horror in this gothic set in an alternate postwar England subtly increases as the novel progresses, unease seeping into the pages.” ―Buzzfeed

Caitlin Starling writes horror-tinged speculative fiction of all flavors. Her first novel, The Luminous Dead, won the LOHF Best Debut Award and was nominated for both the Bram Stoker and Locus Awards. She is also the author of the gothic horror tale Yellow Jessamine, as well as a novella in the Vampire: The Masquerade audio collection, Walk Among Us. Her nonfiction has appeared in Nightmare and Uncanny. Starling also works in narrative design, and has been paid to invent body parts. She’s always on the lookout for new ways to inflict insomnia.