The Keeper

The Keeper

Sarah Langan

Sarah Langan

In her assured but overstuffed horror debut, Langan lovingly crafts the struggling town of Bedford, Maine, its unlucky inhabitants and the troubling history of the town's shuttered paper mill, before tearing it all to bloody pieces. Bedford is haunted by the beautiful Susan Marley, a damaged young woman who wanders the streets and never speaks a word, stirring "feeling[s] of something undone, something quite wrong, at the sight of her." Those feelings are strongest in Susan's maladjusted little sister, Liz, wracked with guilt over Susan's fate; their mother, who refuses to acknowledge her wayward daughter's existence; and alcoholic high school teacher Paul Martin, who once had an affair with Susan. Susan's fall to her death in the final, rain-soaked days of winter triggers a series of events that bring the buried secrets of the town to terrifying reality—people and animals rise from the dead, and a spirit of homicidal rage grips the living. Fighting to survive, Langan's characters come brilliantly to life, their inner conflicts rendered in sharp but exhausting detail at once expansive and constricting, slowing the narrative to a crawl just before it whips into frenzied, graphic violence. This is horror on a big scale, akin to the more ambitious work of Stephen King, and though Langan's enormous imagination can slow her narrative, this effective debut promises great things to come.
Read online
  • 666
A Better World

A Better World

Sarah Langan

Sarah Langan

A cunning, outside-the-box satirical thriller about a family's odyssey into an exclusive enclave for the wealthy that might not be as ideal as it seems.You'll be safe here. That's what the tour guide tells the Farmer-Bowens when they visit Plymouth Valley, a walled-off company town with clean air, pantries that never go empty, and blue-ribbon schools. On a very trial basis, the company offers to hire Linda Farmer's hus­band, Russell, a numbers genius, and relocate her whole family to this bucolic paradise for the .0001 percent. Though Linda will have to sacrifice her medical career back home, the family jumps at the opportunity. They'd be crazy not to take it. With the outside world falling apart, this might be the Farmer-Bowens' last chance. But fitting in takes work. The pampered locals distrust outsiders, snubbing Linda, Russell, and their teen twins. And the residents fervently adhere to a group of customs and beliefs called Hollow...but what...
Read online
  • 535
Good Neighbors

Good Neighbors

Sarah Langan

Sarah Langan

"A modern-day Crucible....Beneath the surface of a suburban utopia, madness lurks." —Liv Constantine, bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish "Sarah Langan is a phenomenal talent with a wicked sense of wry humor. Good Neighbors knocked me out. Like Shirley Jackson, Langan's work blends a bleak streak with an underlying sense of the humane that wrung my heart." —Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling Celeste Ng's enthralling dissection of suburbia meets Shirley Jackson's creeping dread in this propulsive literary noir, when a sudden tragedy exposes the depths of deception and damage in a Long Island suburb—pitting neighbor against neighbor and putting one family in terrible danger.Welcome to Maple Street, a picture-perfect slice of suburban Long Island, its residents bound by their children, their work, and their illusion of safety in a rapidly changing world....
Read online
  • 203
Pam Kowolski Is a Monster!

Pam Kowolski Is a Monster!

Sarah Langan

Sarah Langan

If Janet Chow hadn’t been such a jerk to everyone at Sewanhaka High, they might have voted her Most Likely to Succeed. Twenty-plus years later, life hasn’t turned out how Janet expected. She’s rudderless, her career in journalism crashed, burned, and buried. How did it come to this? But then one day, Janet recognizes her mortal enemy from high school—Pam Kowolski! Somehow, Pam’s become America’s manic pixie sweetheart, an online psychic predicting the end of the world. Pam’s rich, hawt, and famous, meanwhile Janet looks...middle aged. How did this happen? How did Pam Kowolski steal Janet’s life? Janet knows the truth: there’s no way a dumb ass like Pam earned her success. She’s lying about her powers. The world isn’t ending. Pam’s a FRAUD. It’s time for Janet to wake up and claim what’s hers by writing an article that TAKES PAM DOWN. But to reveal Pam, she’s got to dig deep into their shared past. There’s bad stuff back there, scary stuff, and the more Janet learns, the more she worries: what if Pam Kowolski is right? “A high school reunion is the end of the world in this slap-happy, upbeat carnival ride into the Apocalypse.”— Grady Hendrix, author of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls "...simply genius in the way it explores the changeable nature of memory and whether it’s possible to escape a traumatic past. No one writes defiant, damaged characters like Sarah Langan; no matter how they try to hide it, you see every bruise.” —Alma Katsu, author of The Fervor “Creepy and manic, Langan’s mixed media novella will grip you, pull you in, and take you right to the center of its beating, bloody heart.” —Kate Maruyama, author of Bleak Houses, The Collective, and Harrowgate “...totally unhinged, absurdly delightful, a ripper of a novella.”—Lindy Ryan, author of Another Fine Mess “I couldn’t have loved this more. Funny, smart, disturbing, creepy. The novella that 2025 deserves.”—Paul Tremblay, author of Horror Movie
Read online
  • 55
183