Wild Spaces
S. L. Coney
Robert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life meets Lovecraftian horror in this foreboding, sensual coming-of-age debut in which the corrosive nature of family secrets and toxic relatives assume eldritch proportions.
"Can a horror story be beautiful? Wild Spaces tells a terrible truth in the most achingly beautiful way."—Alma Katsu, author of The Fervor
An eleven-year-old boy lives an idyllic childhood exploring the remote coastal plains and wetlands of South Carolina alongside his parents and his dog Teach. But when the boy’s eerie and estranged grandfather shows up one day with no warning, cracks begin to form as hidden secrets resurface that his parents refuse to explain.
The longer his grandfather outstays his welcome and the greater the tension between the adults grows, the more the boy feels something within him changing —physically—into something his grandfather welcomes and his mother fears. Something abyssal. Something monstrous.
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Tor Publishing Group
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On Sale: 08/01/2023
ISBN: 9781250866844
ISBN10: 1250866847
0.00 x 0.00 inches
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144 Pages
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Tor Publishing Group
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ISBN: 9781250866837
ISBN10: 1250866839
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128 Pages
REVIEWS
"Can a horror story be beautiful? Wild Spaces tells a terrible truth in the most achingly beautiful way."—Alma Katsu, author of The Fervor
"Wild Spaces is an eldritch coming-of-age-story done right. It's lyrical, emotionally complex, creepy, and there's not a drop of poisonous nostalgia. I loved it and I can't stop thinking about it."—Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and The Pallbearers Club
"If you mix Flannery O’Connor’s sense of Southern grotesquerie with Shirley Jackson’s tales of every day horror, you get Shaw Coney. What a stellar debut."—Sara Paretsky, New York Times bestselling author and creator of the V. I. Warshawski crime novels
"Monstrous and elegant. Sensual and transformative. Wild Spaces left me aching to know what infernal wonders might follow its final, dazzling image. Coney has the vision of a once-in-a-generation writer. This is how it’s done, people!"—Laura Benedict, Edgar and Thriller-nominated author of When I Make Love to the Bug Man
"Wildly imaginative and gorgeously written. I was hooked from the first word to the last."—Kelley Armstrong, New York Times bestselling author
"S.L. Coney's innate understanding of both people and monsters makes Wild Spaces a sublime read."—Priya Sharma, Shirley Jackson Award and British Fantasy Award-winning author of Ormeshadow and All the Fabulous Beasts.
"Wild Spaces is reminiscent of Ray Bradbury and Robert McCammon, full of equal parts wonder and horror. Tense, atmospheric and visceral."—A.C. Wise, Bram Stoker Award and World Fantasy Award finalist of The Ghost Sequences
"Wild Spaces is a horrifying fever-dream that captures all the intensity and power of youth."—Kelly Robson, Nebula Award—winning author
“A coming-of-age story, but the change in store for the boy is wonderfully unpredictable and so originally weird. Pacing is key to this piece, and the author is brilliant at it."—Jeffrey Ford, author of Ahab's Return
“Wild Spaces is a visceral, haunting, original story that takes the best of cosmic horror and pairs it with familial love in a way that tugs at your heart strings as it continuously raises the levels of horror. It’s Hereditary meets The Fisherman with a dash of The Dark Tower. One of my favorite authors writing today.”—Richard Thomas, Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and Thriller Award nominee
"Atmospheric, humming with menace, heartbreaking, beautifully written."—Glen Hirshberg, author of Infinity Dreams and the Motherless Children trilogy
"Both wrenching family drama and fantastical monster story. . .Coney is a writer to watch."—Publishers Weekly