THE DARK WE KNOW
Gillian Flynn Books
August 13, 2024
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | Indigo (CAN) | Blackwell’s (UK/Int)
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A lyrical, propulsive YA horror that’s perfect for fans of She Is a Haunting, Stephen King’s It, and The Haunting of Hill House, about a teen who must return home to confront the monster that took the lives of her best friends—before it devours her, too.
Isadora Chang swore never to return to the hometown that haunts her. Growing up in Slater, she never felt at ease in the repressive small town, even before she realized she was bisexual—but after the deaths of two childhood friends, Slater went from feeling claustrophobic to suffocating. Isa took off before the town could swallow her, too. Even though it meant leaving everything she knew behind, including her last surviving friend, Mason.
When Isa’s abusive father dies, however, she agrees to come back just long enough to collect the inheritance. But then Mason turns up at the cemetery with a revelation and a plea: their friends were murdered by an evil that haunts the town, and he needs Isa to help stop it—before it takes anyone else.
When Isa begins to hear strange songs on the wind, and eerie artwork fills her sketchbook that she can’t recall drawing, she’s forced to stop running and confront her past. Because something is waiting in the shadows of Slater’s valleys, something that feeds on the pain and heartbreak of its children. Whatever it is, it knows Isa’s back . . . and it won’t let her escape twice.
Wen-yi Lee’s young adult debut is an intimate and gripping exploration of trauma, healing, and the lasting power of friendship, as a teen must finally face the sinister forces that defined her childhood, and in doing so, demand her right to survive.
CONTENT WARNINGS
Suicidal ideation & suicide, grief and depression, references to self-harm, pregnancy scare anxiety (side character/not main plot), domestic abuse, body horror, religious trauma (+ general trauma)