The Staircase In The Woods: Coming April 29th

Listen, I’m going to try not to lose my shit here and shriek at you in a joyful tone that only bats can detect, but it’s gonna be tough because — *gesticulates wildly, pointing at the cover to this book with a manic look on my face* — we have a cover to The Staircase in the Woods and it’s fucking great.

To illuminate a little bit, I’ve been in general very lucky with my book covers, but even then there’s often a a bit of back-and-forth with covers. The publisher sends you one or several options and you ask questions and they offer answers and it’s like, “Should this be here, is this a better font, does this need to be adjusted, does this cover say what we want it to say, why is my name spelled SHARK WEDDING,” and so forth. But this time it was just like, “Here’s a cover,” and I made that bat-shriek joy-sound, and now here we are.

The cover is designed by The Boland Design Co. And they killed it.

(Their website and instagram.)

What’s the book about? Well, here you go:

A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.

Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.

Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere.

One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.

Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . .

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So, that’s the book. I’m pretty excited for this one — it is, for me at least, much shorter than my other books, and as for the story, well, we’re keeping this one a little close to the vest. Just for funsies.

If you’re the kind of COOL PERSON who pre-orders books, you can certainly do that — and if you pre-order from my local, Doylestown Bookshop, all pre-orders will come with a special unique inscription juuuuust for you. But you’ll just have to wait till you get the book, because telling you what it would be could be a bit spoilery for the book, too. So, just know, pre-ordering from them gets you something special. And probably a sticker. I love stickers.

Pre-order now from Doylestown Bookshop. They’ll mail it to you!

You can also pre-order from many of the expected places: Bookshop.org, B&N, Amazon, and so forth. Indie bookstores, of course, rule, and buying from them buys a book for an angel or something. I dunno. Shut up. You can also find a list of retailers at Penguin Random House’s site here.

Hope you check it out.

Hope you like it.

Hope you talk about it.

Hope you make joyful hell-shrieks only bats can hear.

Hope you choose the staircase. Walk up it, and see where it goes, won’t you?