The Poisoned Pen Bookstore will host the launch for Michael Connelly’s latest Harry Bosch novel, The Hollow on Tuesday, October 27 at 7 PM. If you can’t be there, you can order a signed copy of the book through the Webstore, https://tinyurl.com/mwr7k99r.
And, you can read critic Oline Cogdill’s review of The Hollow ahead of time. Cogdill’s review appeared first in the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Thank you, Oline.
Book review: Michael Connelly’s detective Harry Bosch is back and seeking justice in enthralling ‘The Hollow’
‘The Hollow: A Harry Bosch Novel’ by Michael Connelly; Little, Brown; 352 pages; $32
A major part of Michael Connelly’s long-running, award-winning series about LAPD police detective Harry Bosch has been the protagonist’s background. He was reared in a children’s center after he became a ward of the state at age 11 when his mother was murdered; a few group homes followed, each worse than the other, until he was old enough to join the military and then the police force.
Connelly has used Bosch’s history to shape this character, as the enthralling “The Hollow” shows. This 26th outing with Bosch, and Connelly’s 43rd novel, works as an origin story delving into a childhood full of abuse and neglect, while also showing how he became the man and investigator he is and what the future may hold for Harry, all wrapped in a gripping police procedural.
The series has had Harry age through the years, with “The Hollow” showing Harry in his twilight years, as have the last few novels. He’s had a knee replacement, needs a cane to get around, and has various health issues. A punch to the stomach from a thug while Harry’s on a case sends him to the emergency room, and brings in the social workers, worried this “old man” is a victim of elder abuse.
Now retired but still working as a volunteer, Harry’s work ethic remains strong. His mission to make things right and seek justice continues to soar and inform the solid plot of “The Hollow.”
Memories of Harry’s time in the brutal MacLaren Children’s Center flood back when a lawsuit brought by his attorney half-brother, Mickey Haller, yields a massive settlement for survivors of abuse at the facility. Harry wants no part of the money and initially refuses it, until it’s pointed out that he can donate it. Several children died at MacLaren, including Charlie “Chops” Lamb, a young Black boy whom Harry had befriended when he lived there. Harry was not there when Chops died. Because it was California in the 1960s, the deaths were barely investigated. Harry plans to find some justice for Chops, who died in a dark, claustrophobic room called “The Hollow,” which was used to punish children.
“The Hollow” moves from the 1960s to present day as Harry investigates Chops’ death plus another cold case with LAPD detective Renée Ballard. Harry returns to the abandoned MacLaren, slated to be demolished.
Connelly’s titles have multiple meanings. “The Hollow” refers to that confining space but also to the emptiness and lack of hope at MacLaren. But Harry doesn’t have a hollow heart and remains invested in justice.
Los Angeles continues to be a character in Connelly’s novels. “The Hollow” looks at the city through the eyes of a young Harry and of a man who continues to look after his city.
“The Hollow” marks the second year in a row that Connelly has published two novels in one year. In May, Connelly delivered “Ironwood,” the second in his new series about L.A. County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Stilwell, who is stationed in Catalina Island, located just “22 miles of ocean” from Los Angeles.
Two Connelly novels in one year are most welcome.
Behind the plot
Longtime readers will remember that Connelly’s first Harry Bosch novel, “The Black Echo” (1992), included his time as a “tunnel rat” fighting in the underground tunnels during his time as a Vietnam soldier. Readers may see a correlation between MacLaren’s hollow space and those tunnels.
Patrick Millikin recently welcomed Joe R. Lansdale and his daughter, Kasey Lansdale to the Poisoned Pen. Lansdale says his latest book, Petrified Dreams, is his last Hap and Leonard novel. First Chance is Kasey Lansdale’s first novel. There are signed copies of both books available in the Webstore, https://store.poisonedpen.com/.
Here’s the summary of Petrified Dreams.
With women going missing across the Deep South, dynamic detective duo Hap and Leonard zero in on a horrific, chimerical villain protected and abetted by Texas’ most powerful figures in this thrilling conclusion to the beloved series.
“Joe R. Lansdale is to crime fiction what Willie Nelson is to country music: . . . raw, gritty, soulful, and lastly, timeless.”—May Cobb, author of The Hunting Wives
The sun never sets on justice, but it may finally be setting on the beloved crime fighting duo of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. The two opposites—brothers from another mother—have called the detecting business quits, but when a prop plane holding the bodies of several kidnapped women crashes into their favorite watering hole, the boys know they’re in for one last effort. With the help of a victim’s sister, they learn that a network of men has stolen vulnerable young women on behalf of a horrifying, charismatic villain known as The Artist, a sculptor of living things, including his own body, and protected by the elite of the South. But the Artist refuses to be found, and every lead brings Hap and Leonard into the crosshairs of something even more dangerous. Finding The Artist is a long shot, and getting out alive is even less likely.
Perhaps the darkest, funniest, and most intense of the Hap & Leonard mysteries, Petrified Dreams concludes the revered series as audaciously as one would expect from the mojo master of Southern crime and wit.
Joe R. Lansdale is the author of nearly four dozen novels, including Rusty Puppy, the Edgar-award winning The Bottoms, Sunset and Sawdust, and Leather Maiden. He has received nine Bram Stoker Awards, the American Mystery Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas.
Here’s the description of First Chance.
First Chance is a suspenseful thriller that readers won’t be able to put down—perfect for fans of Sue Grafton and Michael Connelly.
Chance Kirby isn’t new to detective work, but starting over in Hopeful, Texas, is a big step. Determined to leave behind her father and stepmother’s shadow and carve out a future of her own, she opens a small PI agency, expecting missing heirlooms and marital disputes. But when the cold case of a murdered teenage girl is dropped on her doorstep, Chance finds herself in the middle of an investigation with no leads.
With her adopted sister Tia, her loyal dog Sissy, and the town’s newly arrived police chief Isabella Lopez at her side, Chance soon begins to suspect this murder may be only one piece of a much bigger, and more disturbing, pattern.
To stop a predator who, it seems, has managed to evade authorities for decades, Chance must stay one step ahead … or risk becoming the next target.
Kasey Lansdale has been in the fiction world since birth as a writer, editor, audiobook narrator, and creative professional. Lansdale is based in LA and currently serves as head editor at Pandi Press. She has released numerous short stories and anthologies from publications such as Harper Collins, Titan Books, and more, and her fiction has been adapted for television and comics. First Chance is her debut novel.
It was difficult for Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, to discuss author Jeffrey Archer. They had been scheduled to discuss his final book, Adam and Eve, but he died on the eve of its U.S. release. Peters was able to discuss Archer and his books with his long-time editor Kate Elton. There are copies of the book available through the Webstore, https://tinyurl.com/4rrxbv8h
Here’s the description of Adam and Eve.
THE FINAL NOVEL FROM THE MASTER STORYTELLER
Armistice Day 1918. Two children are born on the same day, hours – but worlds – apart.
One the son of a shepherd, the other the daughter of an Earl.
Adam and Eve.
Their births mark the end of one war. Their love will change the outcome of another.
‘If there were a Nobel Prize for storytelling, Archer would win’Daily Telegraph
‘Archer is a master entertainer’Time
‘Probably the greatest storyteller of our age’Mail on Sunday
‘Peerless master of the page turner’Daily Mail
Jeffrey Archer, whose novels include the Clifton Chronicles, the William Warwick novels and Kane and Abel, has topped bestseller lists around the world, with sales of over 300 million copies. He is the only author ever to have been a #1 bestseller in fiction, short stories and non-fiction (The Prison Diaries). A member of the House of Lords for over a quarter of a century, the author is married to Dame Mary Archer, and they have two sons, two granddaughters and three grandsons.
You can watch the conversation between Barbara Peters and Kate Elton.
John Charles welcomed Dusti Bowling to The Poisoned Pen. Bowling’s The Drowning Game is a mystery for young adults and adults. You can order a signed copy through the Webstore, https://tinyurl.com/2ca4cmtt
Here’s the description of The Drowning Game.
Award-winning author Dusti Bowling masterfully crafts a wild ride on Arizona’s Salt River in this Hitchcockian thriller that’s perfect for fans of Holly Jackson and Karen M. McManus.
It’s the late 1990s, and seventeen-year-old Christian is content with his summer plans to work and hang out with his cat, when he gets a phone call from his best friend that will change his life forever. James invites Christian to Arizona for a whitewater rafting trip, even though he knows Christian is terrified of water. But James is persuasive, and Christian relents.
In Salt River Canyon, the heat is scorching, and so is James’s pretty girlfriend, Freya. However, something seems off between the couple as bitter words fly. When James and the others disappear in the second raft, Christian and Freya are left to face the rapids alone. Disaster strikes when Freya falls into the river, and Christian is frozen with fear.
One year later, Christian is still wracked with guilt over Freya’s death. Now, he’s a freshman at Arizona State University, and he thinks he sees Freya on campus. It can’t be her. Freya is dead, after all. They found her body. Didn’t they? Christian follows Madison, the girl who looks like Freya, everywhere. He was certain Freya had died that day, but now he’s certain Madison is Freya. Will he ever find out what’s real? Or will his obsession be his downfall?
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
Dusti Bowling is the award-winning, bestselling author of Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus, Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus, The Beat I Drum, 24 Hours in Nowhere, The Canyon’s Edge, Across the Desert, Dust, and the Aven Green chapter book series.
Dusti’s books have won the Reading the West Award, the Sakura Medal, a Golden Kite Honor, the William Allen White Children’s Book Award, and have been nominated for over fifty state awards. Her books are Junior Library Guild Selections and have been named best books of the year by the Chicago Public Library, Kirkus, Bank Street College of Education, A Mighty Girl, Shelf Awareness, and many more.
Dusti currently lives in Eagar, Arizona with her husband, three daughters, and a bunch of farm animals.
Critic Oline Cogdill recently reviewed Michael Koryta’s Die Famous in the South Florida Sun Sentinel. I’m always grateful when she shares a review with us. Koryta appeared at The Poisoned Pen, and you can still order a signed copy of the book through the Webstore, https://tinyurl.com/3j6afphh. After reading the review, you can also watch the video of Michael Koryta’s conversation at the Pen.
Book review: Michael Koryta’s outstanding ‘Die Famous’ explores how we see ourselves — and how others see us
‘Die Famous’ by Michael Koryta; Little, Brown; 416 pages; $30
The desire to be famous isn’t a new concept, long fueled by movies, music and influencers. Sometimes fame is infamous; both come with a price. The nature of fame, of the desire to be known, is the crux of Michael Koryta’s outstanding “Die Famous.”
This standalone novel looks at the cult of celebrity, the bond among parents and children, entitlement and arrogance, all wrapped into a tightly wound plot that’s an evocative historical steeped in the Great Depression. “Die Famous” also delves into how we view ourselves and how others view us.
Eddie “Nickel” Terhune was a good mechanic and a decent farmhand when he met Savannah Cody (later the mother of his son, Alford, whom he never saw). But Nickel wants more than the small towns of Indiana.
He finds that, and his downfall, after joining gangster Al Brady, whose crew breaks him out of prison after a botched bank robbery. It won’t be the first botched crime that Nickel is a part of with the Brady team. Nickel isn’t much of a criminal, “a national villain, but sort of a disappointment … a subordinate in a pack of gangsters … He made it into newspaper articles frequently, but never made the headlines.”
Koryta wisely shifts the focus from Nickel to Savannah, whose sense of entitlement is off the charts, and finally to Alford, their wise-beyond-his-12-years son. Alford grows up during the course of “Die Famous,” as he learns that “people carry wounds that mirrors can’t show.”
“Die Famous” opens as an FBI agent interrogates Savannah in prison for her role in helping the Brady gang, including Nickel. Savannah’s arrogance has been her lifelong default. Before her arrest, she had decided to find and kill Nickel, who was on the run. She dragged along Alford, who had happily lived on the farm with her parents. Her maternal instincts are pretty low if nonexistent.
Along the way, Savannah was joined by her father who, in his youth, had been a private detective. Koryta’s switch to Alford as the main focus makes for a strong story.
Alford’s likability and maturity enhance the story. Readers will cheer for him, hoping he fares better as an adult than his parents. But Koryta also makes the reader invested in Nickel and Savannah. Despite their flaws, Koryta makes us care about them, even though they never learn that fame is fleeting.
“Die Famous” travels through various states as Koryta shows life during the Depression.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently hosted a virtual event with Joanne Harris. author of Chocolat. Peters and Harris share a history with Chocolat, which you can hear in the video. Harris’ latest book is Sleepers in the Snow. You can order a copy through the Webstore, https://tinyurl.com/mscjzbr7
Here’s the description of Sleepers in the Snow.
A gripping and powerful suspense story of love, loss, and the mysteries of memory by internationally bestselling author Joanne Harris.
Out on the moor, in the snow, a house stands beneath a pylon. It is a house full of memories and old things. And, in the dark, when the pylon sings in the wind, it is a house full of ghosts and fading memories . . .
The house, Kirkhill, has a new occupant—just moved in, fresh from a bitter divorce and looking for a new start. The moor is the perfect place for it: isolated, beautiful in the changing seasons, peaceful, and with just enough of the previous owners’ belongings that it’s a perfectly self-contained and cozy home.
Only, as the nights start to draw in and the weather takes a turn, so does the house. The cozy isolation becomes menacing, animals begin acting strangely, and it seems someone could be watching the house. And the diaries of the previous owners begin to reveal a terrible tragedy which befell Kirkhill—one which its new occupant may be unable to escape.
Joanne Harris is an Anglo-French author, whose books include twenty novels, three cookbooks, and many short stories. Her work is extremely diverse, covering aspects of magic realism, suspense, historical fiction, mythology, and fantasy. In 2000, her 1999 novel Chocolat was adapted to the screen, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She is an honorary Fellow of St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and in 2022 was awarded an OBE by Queen Elizabet II. Her novels A Narrow Door and Broken Light are also available from Pegasus Books.
Barbara Peters welcomed Brian Freeman back for an in-person appearance at The Poisoned Pen. Where the Road Ends is the twelfth Jonathan Stride novel. There are still a few signed copies available in the Webstore, https://tinyurl.com/4dwex8fx
Here’s the description of Where the Road Ends.
The murder of a judge and his wife turns Jonathan Stride’s world upside down and leaves him facing a shocking crossroad in this electrifying mystery from New York Times bestselling author Brian Freeman
Jonathan Stride’s partner, Maggie Bei, is driving home after midnight when a call comes in: shots fired at the home of a Duluth judge.
Moments later, she finds Gordon and Tracy Hartwick murdered in their bed. But someone is hiding in the judge’s house, and as Maggie lays chase, she’s forced to make a split-second decision that leaves the intruder dead.
When Stride arrives at the scene, he has to give Maggie devastating news. The intruder had no gun. He wasn’t the killer. She shot an innocent man.
With Maggie facing a firestorm over her actions, Stride must discover who really killed Gordon and Tracy Hartwick—and what secrets they were hiding that put them in the gunsights of a murderer. The shattering finale will change Stride’s world in ways he can’t imagine and leave everyone he loves asking the same question: When you reach the end of the road, where do you go from there?
Brian Freeman is a New York Times bestselling author of psychological suspense novels including Spilled Blood, winner of the ITW Thriller Award for best novel.
Enjoy Brian Freeman’s discussion about his characters and his books.
Brian McAuley, professor of Screenwriting at ASU, one of the five horror writers, acted as moderator for the recent Horror panel at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore. Signed books by his fellow writers, Brian Asman, Richard Chizmar, W.H. Chizmar, and Abe Moss, are available in the Webstore, https://store.poisonedpen.com/.
Check out the books.
From the author of Man, F*ck This House (And Other Disasters)
Two feuding #VanLife influencers must put aside their differences in order to survive when they are stalked by a masked killer in a remote stretch of Death Valley.
Morgan and Jasper are the couple everyone wants to be: beautiful, successful, and constantly mobile. Their #VanLife content has captured the hearts and minds of a million online followers, who all “smash that subscribe button” to watch as the loving couple documents their outdoor adventures.
But it’s all a sham. Their relationship is on the rocks. Jasper doesn’t know Morgan’s trolling the dating apps. Morgan doesn’t know Jasper blew all their earnings on shady crypto investments. What started as a fun way to share their love of nature has turned into a grind. Plus, they’ve also got stalkers: fans whose parasocial obsession with the couple verges on the terrifying.
When Jasper gets a contract to shoot a promo for an upstart granola company at the Ubehebe Crater, a gorgeous but remote section of Death Valley, he talks Morgan into taking a last-minute trip. He’s secretly hoping this trip will not only solve their financial woes but also help them reconcile. But things go wrong immediately. A mysterious black van runs them off the road. Their cameraman seems like a lunatic. And soon, they find themselves stranded in the desert, pursued by a masked killer. Can Morgan and Jasper put aside their differences long enough to survive both the killer and the desert itself?
Brian Asman, author of the viral sensation Man, F*ck This House, is a writer, actor, and director from San Diego. Good Dogs is his debut novel. Find him on social media (@TheBrianAsman) or his website BrianAsmanBooks.com.
The terrifying horror trilogy finale to the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling series that includes Chasing the Boogeyman and Becoming the Boogeyman from “one of horror’s indispensable writers” (Paste).
Notorious serial killer Joshua Gallagher—dubbed “the Boogeyman” by the media—has vanished from prison. One moment, he was locked inside a maximum-security cell; the next, he was gone, leaving behind on the wall a crude hangman puzzle and two chilling words: IT’S TIME.
Now, days later, the world is coming apart again. Bodies are turning up near writer and Gallagher confidante Richard Chizmar’s home, echoing the Boogeyman’s signature horrors. The news frenzy reignites while the police chase shadows…even as Gallagher’s twisted true crime fanbase celebrates online, acknowledging that he’s something more than human now.
To everyone else, it’s a desperate hunt for answers. To Chizmar, it’s more like destiny closing in. The evidence, the sightings, the voices in the dark all point to one unthinkable conclusion: the Boogeyman never left. And very soon, Chizmar must come face-to-face with the thing wearing Gallagher’s skin, and learns all too quickly that some nightmares don’t return—they evolve.
“Richard Chizmar delves deep into our worst fears and touches the darkness that lives there.” —S. A. Cosby
Richard Chizmar is the author of New York Times bestselling novels Chasing the Boogeyman,Becoming the Boogeyman, Memorials, and Widow’s Point: The Complete Haunting (cowritten with son, W.H. Chizmar), and coauthor (with Stephen King) of the New York Times bestselling novella Gwendy’s Button Box, the novel Gwendy’s Final Task, and the solo novella Gwendy’s Magic Feather. His short fiction has appeared in dozens of publications, most recently, the bestselling anthology, The End of The World as We Know It: New Stories of Stephen King’s The Stand. He is the founder and publisher of the specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense, Cemetery Dance. He has won two World Fantasy awards, four International Horror Guild awards, and the HWA’s Board of Trustees award. Chizmar’s work has been translated into more than fifteen languages throughout the world, and he has appeared at numerous conferences as a writing instructor, speaker, panelist, and guest of honor. Follow him on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky: @RichardChizmar, or visit his website at RichardChizmar.com.
The USA TODAY bestseller and acclaimed solo debut from the New York Times bestselling coauthor of Widow’s Point: The Complete Haunting—a post-apocalyptic/survival horror novel written in the bestselling traditions of Stephen King’s The Mist and Josh Malerman’s Bird Box.
A top-secret government project hits upon a revolutionary idea for transporting matter across the vast reaches of the universe, and it succeeds in bringing something back. Something alive. Soon, mankind’s reign comes to an abrupt halt when a truck hauling a very special shipping container overturns and rolls off the highway, unleashing an otherworldly horror upon an unsuspecting New England countryside, where it cannot be contained…
Several years later, an unidentified man emerges from the rubble of humanity, seeking other survivors and a shred of hope amid an eerie and lonely landscape. He travels by night up the rural East Coast, discovering Americana ruins and encountering monsters the likes of which no one has survived. Scarred and molded by the cruel horrors of this new natural order, he must face his own dwindling humanity and pray that any others out there have not become monsters themselves…
W.H. Chizmar is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling coauthor (with Richard Chizmar) of Widow’s Point: The Complete Haunting, as well as numerous short stories and essays. He lives in Maryland with his Bernese Mountain Dog, J.J. (short for James Joyce).
The 5th book in the Killer VHS Series, hailed as “the modern-day Goosebumps for Adults” by Horror Obsessive.
She’s making a list… and chopping it twice!
In this sequel to the acclaimed slasher that Stephen Graham Jones called “a novella with a heart the size of a franchise,” the survivors of the Christmas Eve carnage at the Thornton house head to the Church of Nodland to confront the local congregation. Little do they know that Candy Cain is coming to town to wish one and all a very merry axe-mas!
Brian McAuley is a USA Today Bestselling author and WGA screenwriter living and dying in Arizona.
Perfect for fans of You’re Next and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, “this monstrous horror story uses supernatural horror elements to creep us out. Unsettling and atmospheric.” (Capes & Tights)
This edition features bonus material.
Meeting the family is scary. Surviving them is a nightmare.
Connie can’t deny she’s nervous about meeting her boyfriend’s family. Spending the weekend at their ritzy woodland summer home, Evan has already given her fair warning that his parents are cold, snobbish, and especially unpleasant toward those outside their usual social circles.
So when Evan’s mother warmly greets them with open arms, Connie is as confused as he is. Evan’s parents are nothing like he described.
They’re so friendly, in fact, Evan himself can hardly believe they’re real. Then, while helping with dinner, Connie overhears strange noises coming from the basement—what almost sounds like voices calling out for help.
Connie doesn’t realize that once the door is opened, it can’t be closed. Or that once she descends those rickety steps into the darkness below . . . she may never see the light of day again.
Abe Moss has been writing horror stories for as long as he can remember, and hopes to never stop. With each book he writes, he hopes to try something a little different. The possibilities are endless and that’s what he really loves about storytelling. He hopes you’ll enjoy his stories too!
He also writes suspense thrillers as Beau Savage . . . if you’re into that kind of thing.
Enjoy the conversation with the five horror authors.
Critic Oline Cogdill sent a review of Henry Wise’s Promised Land. Last year, Wise won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel for Holy City. Now, you can order a copy of the sequel through the Webstore, https://tinyurl.com/5cstc69k
Here’s Cogdill’s review as it originally appeared in the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Book review: Bloodstains, bullets & swamp secrets drive the gripping new mystery ‘Promised Land’
‘Promised Land’ by Henry Wise; Atlantic Crime; 384 pages; $27
A promised land can take myriad shapes and ideas. For some residents of south Virginia, that idea for a promised land leads to the oddly named Snakefoot, a dark, gloomy swamp that “refuses to shine but somehow shines” in Henry Wise’s lyrical and dynamic “Promised Land.”
A sequel to Wise’s 2025 Edgar Award-winning “Holy City,” this latest novel is a hard-charging yet emotional police procedural that delves into isolation, family issues, a connection to the land, and violence simmering under the surface.
Deputy Sheriff Will Seems and Deputy Tania Jameson investigate the disappearance of Rainbo Boon, whose abandoned pickup truck is found stuck in the mud with bloodstains and a scattering of bullets. The investigation leads the deputies farther into the swamp and to Rainbo’s far-flung kinfolk, including his teenage grandson, Buck, who at first is cooperative but then withdraws his help.
Family secrets tumble out as Wise bends a plot that twists with unpredictability. The past continues to loom large for each resident, affected also by the present and the promise of a future. This is especially true of Will, whose personal history and future inform his decisions.
The Southern landscape, beautiful and bleak, “a jagged monotony of land,” becomes a character itself in the engrossing “Promised Land.”
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Lauren Willig to discuss her new book, What Happens iAt Nightfall. Willig calls is a paranormal contemporary romance, but she said she discovered it’s part of a hot new genre, horrormance. There are signed copies of the book in the Webstore, https://tinyurl.com/2jk7dtc7
Here’s the summary of What Happens At Nightfall.
New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig returns with What Happens at Nightfall, a delightfully Gothic romantic adventure, complete with a little bit of demon-hunting. In the sprawling Gothic expanse of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, some secrets refuse to stay buried. Recently laid off and searching for purpose, Jess reluctantly joins her best friend on a supposedly fun nighttime cemetery tour. Separated from her group by accident, she discovers a bunch of terrified boys and a strange, ancient key. Both lead to Green-Wood’s surprisingly handsome resident arborist, Adam Chervinsky. Recently widowed, Adam has more to protect than the leafy residents of Green-Wood. His children, still dealing with the loss of their mother, are acting strangely. A haunting is afoot, and Jess seems to know more than she’s letting on. Sparks fly between Jess and Adam—and the unquiet spirits of Green-Wood rise from their century-long slumber. As Jess and Adam delve deeper into the cemetery’s haunted history, they uncover a Gilded Age curse, a ghostly socialite, and a demonic pact that stretches across generations. What lies hidden in the Green-Wood’s splendid Vanderwilt mausoleum? As the line between the living and the dead blurs, and the shadows of Green-Wood begin to stir with malevolent intent, Jess must confront not only the supernatural forces but a shocking connection to the past if she and Adam truly want to live happily ever after.
Lauren Willig is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. An alumna of Yale University, she has a graduate degree in history from Harvard and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She lives in New York City.
Enjoy the conversation with Lauren Willig, and find yourself in the forefront of the newest hot genre, horrormance.
