1980s
A House With Good Bones
A. G. Slatter
A01=Alisa Alering
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
All the Murmuring Bones
Andy Davidson
Appalachia
Appalachian Mountains
Appalachian Trail
Appalachians
Author_Alisa Alering
automatic-update
Barbara Kingsolver
Black Dog
Category1=Fiction
Category=FK
Category=FM
Claire Fuller
COP=United Kingdom
Cursed Bread
Daniel Woodrell
Delia Owens
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
Demon Copperhead
Desire
Disappearance at Devil's Rock
E Saxey
Eighties
eq_bestseller
eq_fantasy
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Feminism
Feminist
Folk horror
Folklore
Girlhood
Hikers
Hiking
Horror
Julia Armfield
Kelly Link
Language_English
Living mountain
Magical realism
Murder
Nature
Noose
Our Wives Under the Sea
PA=Available
Paul Tremblay
Pennsylvania
Poverty
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
Rambo
Rope
Rural gothic
Sentient mountain
Sexuality
softlaunch
Sophie Mackintosh
Southern gothic
T Kingfisher
The Boatman's Daughter
The Haunting of Alejandra
The Water Cure
Unsettled Ground
V Castro
Verity M Holloway
Where the Crawdads Sing
White Cat
Winter's Bone
Womanhood
Product details
- ISBN 9781803369952
- Dimensions: 130 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 24 Jul 2024
- Publisher: Titan Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Set in an isolated 1980s Appalachian community, reeling from the brutal murder of two hikers, this novel is deliciously creepy and unsettling, yet gorgeous and dreamlike in its portrayal of two impoverished girls who must come to terms with what’s happening on the sentient mountain they call home and also with themselves as they stand on the cusp of adulthood.
1980s Appalachia. Sheila knows she needs to keep her appetites in check. Isolated and struggling in ramshackle poverty, her desires – for food, for escape, for the perfect girls in the pages of her pilfered magazines – are about the only things she can control. But with every passing day, life with her exhausted mother and her half-feral younger sister Angie feels more like a rope tightening around her neck.
When a pair of hikers are brutally murdered on the trail, Sheila and Angie find themselves drawn inexorably into the hunt for the killer. The mountain they live on is ancient and powerful – and it’s using them for its own ends. Sheila knows the landscape’s folklore is dangerous and unpredictable, but as the ever-present threat of violence looms larger, it might be the only thing that can save her and her sister from the darkness consuming their home…
Somewhere between a rural gothic and a dark fairytale, Smothermoss beckons readers into the eerily beautiful woods of the Appalachian Mountains—as well as into a lyrical investigation of girlhood, bodies, class, desire, nature, and the otherworldly. Full of the picturesque dread of an A24 horror movie, it’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle meets Winter’s Bone, and will appeal to fans of Sophie Mackintosh, Julia Armfield, and Kelly Link.
Writer, editor and writing coach Alisa Alering grew up in Pennsylvania’s Appalachian Mountains and now lives in southern Arizona. After attending Clarion West, her short fiction has been published in Fireside, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Podcastle, and Cast of Wonders, among others, and been recognised by the Calvino Prize. A former librarian and science/technology reporter, she teaches fiction workshops at the Highlights Foundation. Smothermoss is her first novel.
Find Alisa at alering.com, or on Twitter at @alering and Instagram at @alisa.alering
