Published in 2025
283 pages
Laura Lee Bahr is the award-winning author of the novels Haunt, Long-Form Religious Porn, and the short story collection Angel Meat. Her short stories have been featured in over a dozen literary magazines and anthologies, including Ghost Parachute, Tragedy Queens, Francesca Lia Block’s Lit Angels, and the noir volume of Nicolas Winding Refn’s byNWR.com. Her filmography includes writing and directing the award-winning feature Boned and the experimental short film Strange Bird. Bahr was also awarded the spring 2018 writer-in-residence at the Jack Kerouac House in Orlando, Florida. She currently lives in Brockton, Massachusetts.
What is this book about?
An ingenious novel of suspense about sisterhood, innocence, murderous games, and how far we’ll go to protect the ones we love.
In a tight-knit town in the 1980s, a child-killer is on the loose. And Topaz’s parents are on edge. At ten years old, Topaz is so vulnerable. But she has nothing to worry about. Her eldest sister, Ruby, has made sure of that. Swearing Topaz to secrecy, Ruby reveals she has trapped the monster in their root cellar.
Bound and bloodied in the cold space is kindly Brother Johnson from the church. Pleading with Topaz to cut him loose, he says her reckless sister is a liar. Brother Johnson is right about that: Ruby does lie. She also likes to scare people. Still, even Ruby wouldn’t lie about this. Would she? The game―and the secret―is in her hands. But Topaz just wants to do the right thing.
Let Brother Johnson die in the cold space? Or try to set him free―and then see what happens next?
