There Are Ghosts Here
this isn't an ominous warning, it's a new book announcement!
In 2021, the seed of a story gripped me by the throat and refused to let go. A story that felt almost like an exorcism, that focused on the most important relationships in my teenaged life: my friendships.
The characters and setting arrived, fully formed. Three girls, once strangers, now entangled in each other, stuck in a crumbling Victorian manor by the sea, trying to find a way out.
But I had other books on contract, had just sent The Third Daughter out on submission, and so, I kept those opening pages, those girls, that house, stored safely on my hard drive. I’d come back to it from time to time. Saving it for when the time was right.
That time, I’m delighted to share, is now.
I’ve written four sapphic romantic fantasy novels, and I’ve loved dabbling in brand new worlds, but I have always wanted to write speculative stories—books grounded in our real world, while still delving deep into emotion, metaphor, and whimsical, lyrical language.
Don’t get me wrong, I love love, and it has been such an honor getting to write romantic, sapphic stories, but when I was sixteen, I wasn’t nearly as concerned about falling in love as I was about holding tight to my friends. I experienced some truly heart wrenching friend breakups, ones that haunted me longer and were far more painful than any romantic relationship at that age. I wanted to write a book where I could tug at those threads, where I could toy with the messy, often brutal dynamics of a friendship triangle—where two is company, three’s a crowd.
I got to do all of that and more in There Are Ghosts Here, the first contemporary speculative YA in my catalog. This book found a perfect home with the brilliant Krista Marino, who got it and got me right from the jump. Getting to work on this book with Krista and her assistant Emma Leyense has sharpened my teeth, my plot, my vision. It’s been an absolute dream, made possible by my incomparable agent Jim McCarthy.
A little more about There Are Ghosts Here:
In the wake of a tragic incident, the details of which she can’t remember, Willa Childs is sent to Dorsey House, a mysterious reformatory by the sea. After suffering a strange haunting at the hands of a faceless ghost, Willa enlists the help of the two other residents to recover her memories, but the three girls soon discover they are entangled in a supernatural conspiracy that bend the constraints of time, space, and themselves.
There Are Ghosts Here feels to me like She is a Haunting meets Girl, Interrupted. Expect classic Adrienne Tooley emotional girls, exploration of mental health, and queerness with the added bonus of too-intense female friendships, messy, brutal girls, a run-down manor by the sea, and, of course, ghosts.
I’ll share more as I know it—cover, release date, summaries, blurbs, you’ll hear it all here first. You can also add There Are Ghosts Here to Goodreads.
I’m so grateful to you—it’s because of readers, booksellers, and librarians that I’m able to keep writing stories.
Willa and I will see you next summer at Dorsey House.
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I am already SO DEEPLY HOOKED. CANNOT WAIT.