What Grows in the Dark

"""Evans gets the pacing of this chiller just right. Skin-crawling and unpredictable, this is sure to please horror fans."" --Publishers Weekly ""The book opens with an unease that builds to outright disturbing and features both strong LGBTQ representation and a compelling combination of lies, secrets, and twists. Readers will be drawn in quickly, but it is Brigit and Ian and their alternating narrations that will keep them turning the pages."" --Booklist ""A surreal and deftly crafted debut. Evans weaves mystery, horror, and family through impossible forests, making you question character and truth in unsettling yet deeply satisfying ways. Though readers might invoke writers such as Paul Tremblay and Kelly Link (and perhaps even Joe Hill), Evans carves out a patch of cursed soil all her own. This is the rare book that crawled under my skin so deep that I wanted to re-read it again to see what I had missed in the dream state Evans conjured."" --Sequoia Nagamatsu, author of How High We Go in the Dark ""At once suspenseful and tender, What Grows in the Dark joins the ranks of Yellowjackets as a queer horror masterpiece. It is so many things: a spooky page-turner, an unflinching examination of trauma, and a moving and brilliant exploration of all the things that possess us and keep us trapped in the past--guilt, shame, failure, and monsters, both real and of our own making. This is a surprising, haunting, and necessary book."" --Marisa Crane, author of I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself ""Through mounting dread, with every turn of the page, What Grows in the Dark explores--terrifyingly so--the notions of family, indebtedness, and how the past never really lets us go."" --Keith Rosson, author of Fever House ""Jaq Evans offers you a trip back home to unravel the mysteries of a traumatic but half-forgotten past in What Grows in the Dark. This is a smart, absorbing debut novel with memorable characters and much to say about remorse, friendship and sacrifice."" --Christi Nogle, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Beulah ""Atmospheric and haunting, What Grows in the Dark gripped me from its first pages. The chilling imagery has stayed with me, but so have the intricately crafted characters. It was hard to close this book and part with Brigit and her found family. I could have followed them forever."" --Cole Nagamatsu, author of We Were Restless Things ""Jaq Evans's dazzling exploration of grief, identity, and the ties that bind is a powerful and unflinching journey into the hidden corners of the human heart. Compulsively readable and unfurling with the seductive beauty of a night-blooming flower, What Grows in the Dark is a thrill ride of a debut."" --Robert Levy, author of The Glittering World ""Utterly unsettling and wildly original, What Grows in the Dark is an authentic and atmospheric reading experience and a triumph of a horror debut. Jaq Evans isn't satisfied with crafting a terrifying narrative to slice into your nightmares with X-Acto knife precision; her unflinching prose will ensnare you in a twisting knot of dread as thick as a pine copse... The only way out is to follow Evans's exquisitely-realized characters through the living, breathing, growing dark."" --Christa Carmen, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of The Daughters of Block Island ""Like the characters who dare to enter the Dell, What Grows in the Dark will lure and lock you under its spell in this new horror offering that crackles with wit and sensitivity as well as scares."" --Kelly J. Ford, Anthony Award-nominated author of Real Bad Things ""What Grows in the Dark is a brilliant book written by a brilliant writer. Jaq Evans lasers in on relationships, lies and secrets with panache and verve. This story's heart of darkness beat all around me as I stayed up all night, night after night, and slept (fitfully) with the lights on. My jaw dropped at the ending. Jaq Evans is the new voice of horror."" --Nancy Holder, New York Times bestselling author and Lifetime Achievement Award winner, the Horror Writers Association ""A spooky walk in the woods for fans of supernatural mysteries, LGBTQIA+ protagonists, and folk horror such as The Blair Witch."" --Library Journal ""For fans of thoughtful horror featuring tangled, realistic characters, What Grows in the Dark is an exciting addition to the canon."" --Shelf Awareness"