Monstrous
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Forced to spend her summer in her aunt's strange small town, a teen girl discovers dark secrets hidden in the woods. From the author of Bad Witch Burning comes another pulse-pounding novel perfect for fans of Supernatural and Lovecraft Country.
Don't go outside past dark. Come straight home after church. And above all—never, ever, go into Red Wood.
These are the rules Latavia's aunt gives her when Latavia arrives in Sanctum, Alabama for the summer. Though, weird as they are, living in Sanctum does have its pros. Mainly, the cute girl who works at the local ice cream shop.
But Sanctum is turning out to be as strange as the rules—and the longer Latavia’s in town, the more suspicious she is that the people there are hiding something. And the more clear it is that she’s an outsider. Everyone’s nice enough, but they seem determined to prove everything is normal.
But it's not. Because there’s something in Red Wood that the towns’ people are hiding. And if Latavia doesn't follow her aunt’s rules, she might not be able to leave Sanctum. Ever...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this wildly inventive paranormal horror novel by Lewis (Bad Witch Burning), gay Black 18-year-old Latavia Johnson is spending the summer in Sanctum, Ala., with her aunt before her freshman year at the University of Georgia. Latavia has only been there for six weeks; in that time, she's attended three closed-casket funerals, all for community members who died suddenly under mysterious circumstances. With just a few weeks to go before school begins, Latavia is determined to stay out of trouble by following Auntie's occasionally grating rules: don't stay out after dark, and never enter Red Wood, the eerie local forest. But trouble finds her when a group of townspeople restrain her to a stone altar in the woods to be sacrificed to an unknown monster. A giant talking snake appears, and Latavia strikes a deal—she will help him overcome magical barriers that prevent him from wreaking havoc on the town if he agrees to destroy those who tried to sacrifice her. Latavia and the serpent's darkly humorous banter depicts the duo as an oddball pair; combined with the protagonist's blossoming romance with a white teenage resident, Lewis provides elevating levity to the outlandish—and captivating—premise. Ages 14–up.
