My Dearest Darkest

Evil lurks in the tunnels beneath a small-town Maine prep school in Cottingham’s haunting sapphic horror debut. When white Finch Chamberlin, along with her parents, dies after their car mysteriously plunges off a bridge while departing prestigious Ulalume Academy, the monster lurking there brings Finch alone back from the dead. Three months later, Finch attends the academy and lives with London-born Arab roommate Sumera Nazir. Eager to make friends, Finch attends a party in the haunted tunnels, where the image of an eight-eyed stag leads her and an eclectic group of girls, including beautiful, popular Selena St. Clair, to a creature, Nerosi. When the teens accidentally summon Nerosi into their reality from a void-like dimension, the entity offers to grant their deepest desires—for a price. Cottingham’s narrative fluidly blends Finch’s struggle navigating her own sexuality and her intensifying feelings for Selena, the girls’ grandiose wants and wishes, and the creature’s sinister hold on their town into a spine-tingling thrill ride that calls on classic prep school dynamics and eerie gothic imagery. Ages 14–up. Agent Erica Bauman, Aevitas Creative Management. (Mar.)