{"id":63375,"date":"2026-03-03T09:44:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=63375"},"modified":"2026-03-03T09:44:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:44:06","slug":"out-now-the-staircase-in-the-woods-paperback-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2026\/03\/03\/out-now-the-staircase-in-the-woods-paperback-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Out Now: The Staircase In The Woods, Paperback Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The day is upon us when The Staircase In The Woods<\/strong> achieves its final<\/em> form, which is to say, trade paperback<\/em>. (Okay, no, I don’t literally know if it’ll be its final form — I only mean, when this happens, the hardcover edition phases out, and the paperback edition becomes the dominant edition they reprint as long as said reprinting is deserved.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Let’s just get procurement portals out of the way now —<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, if you want a signed and personalized copy from me whereupon I provide you with your VERY OWN LIMINAL ROOM AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRCASE, hey, you can order a copy from Doylestown in the next few days<\/a> and I’ll be signing and getting those shipped out next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s also your local indie, or bookshop-dot-org<\/a> as options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the paperback, there’s also AMZ<\/a>, B&N<\/a>, Powells<\/a>, BAM<\/a>, and of course in audio and ebook the book is still existing at all the expected places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And all that being said —<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe instead you just wanna come find me and grab the book at The Twisted Spine this Thursday the 5th, where I will hang out with Clay McLeod Chapman. (Details here<\/a>.) Orrrrr Thursday the 26th where I get to hang with Eric LaRocca at Thrillerdelphia for his newest, Wretch. (Deets here<\/a>.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s taken a while to get to paperback release, in part because the hardcover sold very well. I’ve talked about this before, and I say it not to brag, but in hardcover it’s sold more than the full current HC + PB runs of Wayward and Black River Orchard. (Er, not combined.) Something about this book is hitting with people, and I think it’s a polarizing read for some folks, and I think that was true of this book’s spiritual cousin, The Book of Accidents<\/strong>, too. (If TBOA was about family, TSITW is about friendship. And they’re both ostensibly very oblique looks at The Haunted House genre.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s been a nice journey with this book — though I don’t know that I’ve had any really not<\/em>-nice journeys with a book, barring maybe the Star Wars books, and perhaps the disappointment that Wayward<\/strong> didn’t quite get there in terms of sales or even awareness levels. Staircase has lived a good life so far and I hope it keeps getting to live that life — I’ll admit a small little sad-face-emoji that it didn’t get love at the Stokers this year, but that’s just me feeling Peppermint Petty, because the books that did<\/em> get recognized are beyond deserving. (And I’ll further admit that my sad-face-emoji turns to the angry-face-emoji when I see that books like When The Wolf Comes Home, Coffin Moon, Victorian Psycho, Vanishing Daughters, Bat Eater, At Dark I Become Loathsome, Crafting for Sinners<\/strong>, all failed to get noms, but that’s life in the big city, and you should check out all those novels ASAFP.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve had many folks ask me about a sequel to this book, and I’ll say there are no plans for one — while there’s a sort of open door at the end of this, I do think the story for our characters concludes, and sequels to books like this just don’t hit in the marketplace the way I’d hope. (See: Wayward.) That said, if something really tickles me, I’d consider it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ll note that I’ve had in mind for a good year or more now a book that actually gathers a number of characters from my other books — Miriam Black’s daughter, Lulu; Oliver, from TBOA; a character from Staircase that I won’t mention; Pete Corley from Wanderers\/Wayward — and kind of sends them on a strange adventure together, sort of an oops our universes discarded us and now we’re here<\/em> thing, with a great evil to confront in a mad world. That’s a maybe-one-day thing, but I can’t imagine there’s a market for it or that my publisher would be hot to trot for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, there miiiiight be some loose little threads — like diaphanous spider strands, drifting on the wind — catching on the story in The Calamities<\/strong> and forming a new, gleaming web. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(That book is coming out in August, and you should definitely preorder a copy through Doylestown Bookshop<\/a>, and I’ll sign and personalize it and tell you who the ancestor is of your fiendish demonic brood<\/em>, you know, for funsies.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ooh, one last piece of trivia —<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, this book has been living in my brain for a long time — many of my books do that, and I often note that when I have ideas I generally try to chase them away, and it’s the ones that keep fucking pestering me<\/em> that get written down. And this particular idea is actually the very first one that starts my Notes-app BOOK IDEAS file I’ve been maintaining for years and years — and so when it came time to pitch a new middle grade book, I pitched Staircase first<\/em> as a middle grade book. I know. I know<\/em>. I aged down the characters to middle-grade, and there was no “grown-up” component (i.e. the POV that dominates this book now), and I pitched it and my editor was like ha ha what the fuck this is too dark, no, nooo<\/em>, no no no, and so we ended up with Monster Movie!<\/strong> instead — and that became a kind of spiritual cousin to this book, in its own way. Books about friendship and fear! I think if you read both you’ll find some connective tissue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But somewhere out there is an alternate universe where this book was…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For<\/em> kids<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*shudder*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway! Paperback is out!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell your friends!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell your family!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use it to torment your foes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you’ve read the book, please leave a review in a reputable review receptacle, thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OKAY COOL, ENJOY THE BOOK, LOVE YOU, BE SAFE AND SANE OUT THERE, BYE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

p.s. the book also comes out in the UK on Thursday the 5th<\/a>, where it was a Sunday Times Bestseller (!?) — cover here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The day is upon us when The Staircase In The Woods achieves its final form, which is to say, trade paperback. (Okay, no, I don’t literally know if it’ll be its final form — I only mean, when this happens, the hardcover edition phases out, and the paperback edition becomes the dominant edition they reprint […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-63375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-theramble","9":"has-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image-3-scaled.png?fit=2021%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-gub","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63375"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63386,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63375\/revisions\/63386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}