Thirteens
Neil Gaiman's Coraline meets Stranger Things in a dark and twisted story about a sleepy town with a dark secret - and the three kids brave enough to uncover it.
Twelve-year-old Eleanor has just moved to Eden Eld to live with her aunt and uncle after her mother was killed in a fire. Her birthday, which falls on Halloween, is just around the corner, and she hopes that this year will be a fresh start at a new life. But then one morning, an ancient grandfather clock counting down thirteen hours appears outside of her bedroom. And then she spots a large black dog with glowing red eyes prowling the grounds of her school. A book of fairytales she's never heard of almost willingly drops in front of her, as if asking to be read. Something is wrong in the town of Eden Eld.
Eleanor and her new classmates, Pip and Otto, are the only ones who see these "wrong things," and they also all happen to share a Halloween birthday. Bonded by these odd similarities, the trio uncovers a centuries-old pact the town has with a mysterious figure known as Mr. January: every thirteen years, three thirteen-year-olds disappear, sacrificed in exchange for the town's unending good fortune. This Halloween, Mr. January is back to collect his payment and Eleanor, Pip, and Otto are to be his next offering... unless they can break the curse before the clock strikes thirteen.
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Kate Alice Marshall
Kate Alice Marshall is a master of creating worlds that blur the line between the real and the unsettling, where ordinary lives intertwine with the eerie and the inexplicable. A writer who specializes in thrillers and horror, Marshall’s stories invite readers into psychological landscapes as haunting as they are immersive. Whether crafting chilling young adult novels like I Am Still Alive or exploring dark mysteries in adult thrillers such as What Lies in the Woods, her writing thrives on suspense, tension, and the supernatural, exploring what happens when characters are pushed to their limits.
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