Dark Things I Adore

Lattari (American Vaudeville) makes her thriller debut with a complex, deeply disturbing tale of vengeance. In 1988, Juniper returns to King City, Maine, to resume teaching at the Lupine Valley Arts Collective, a sleepaway camp for aspiring artists. There, Juniper befriends Coral, the newly hired cleaner who also dreams of becoming an artist. It becomes clear that Coral is mentally ill, and as Juniper tries to intervene to help Coral, tension builds among Juniper’s circle of friends. One night, two people witness a death in the woods, and secrets remain buried until 2018, when Audra Colfax, a Boston Institute for the Visual Arts graduate student, plots her revenge. The alluring Audra invites her thesis mentor, the pompous, womanizing artist Max Durant, to travel with her to her home in Maine. Readers will soon pinpoint Max’s role in the death 30 years earlier, though he’s not as quick to ascertain Audra’s true intentions for inviting him to Maine. After a slow start, the plot gains momentum and builds to a chilling conclusion. Those who are comfortable with a cast of morally ambiguous characters will best appreciate this one. Agent: Sarah Bedingfield, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (Sept.)