We're cackling with joy about welcoming Rachel Harrison, bestselling horror author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle, to introduce her new novel, Black Sheep, a fiery, irreverent horror novel about a woman who must confront her cultish, diabolical family and uncover their many secrets. Vesper Wright is in hell. The night she gets fired from her unglamorous restaurant job, she comes home to find an invitation waiting on her doorstep from her estranged family to the wedding of Vesper’s cousin and childhood best friend, Rosemary, the one person she regrets losing touch with. Something inside her is telling her she must attend the wedding, even if it means suffering through a weekend in the community she defected from. When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a horrifying family secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s fanatical beliefs and her own unexpected identity. Rachel will be in conversation with writer Courtney Preiss, who's debut novel Welcome Home, Caroline Kline releases next April.
If you're not able to make the event, you can order a signed and personalized copy by clicking on the book below. Add "Signed Copy" and how you'd like the book personalized in the comments section of your order.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
A cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle.
Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.
Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.
When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Rachel Harrison is the national bestselling author of Such Sharp Teeth, Cackle, and The Return, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica, in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, as an Audible Original, and in her debut collection, Bad Dolls. She lives in western New York with her husband and their cat/overlord.
Courtney Preiss was born in Brooklyn and raised in New Jersey off the same Highway 9 Bruce Springsteen sings about on “Born to Run.” She graduated from Emerson College with a BFA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing. She lives in Asbury Park, NJ with her husband and their rescue dog, Barry. Her first novel, Welcome Home, Caroline Kline, is forthcoming in April 2024 from Putnam/Penguin Random House.
