The Drowning Girl

Praise for Caitlín R. Kiernan

“Ms. Kiernan is a cartographer of lost worlds and constantly writes about thresholds—those harsh spaces in between two realities that she relishes—being crossed, if not transgressed.”

—
The New York Times

T
HE
D
ROWNING
G
IRL

“With
The Drowning Girl
, Caitlín R. Kiernan moves firmly into the new vanguard, still being formed, of our best and most artful authors of the gothic and fantastic—those capable of writing fiction of deep moral and artistic seriousness. This subtle, dark, in-folded novel, through which flickers a weird, insistent genius, is like nothing I’ve ever read before.
The Drowning Girl
is a stunning work of literature, and if I may be so blunt, Caitlín R. Kiernan’s masterpiece.”

—Peter Straub

“In this novel, Caitlín R. Kiernan turns the ghost story inside out and transforms it. This is a story about how stories are told, about what they reveal and what they hide, but is no less intense or suspenseful because of that. It’s a tale of real and unreal hauntings that quickly takes you down deep and only slowly brings you up for air.”

—Brian Evanson, author of
Last Days

“
The Drowning Girl
features all those elements of Caitlín R. Kiernan’s writing that readers have come to expect—a prose style of wondrous luminosity, an atmosphere of languorous melancholy, and an inexplicable mixture of aching beauty and clutching terror. It is a ghost story, but also a book about the writing of ghost stories. It is about falling in love, falling out of love, and wondering whether madness is a gift or a curse. It is one of those very few novels that one wishes would never end.”

—S. T. Joshi, author of
I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft

“This is a masterpiece. It deserves to be read in and out of genre for a long, long time.”

—Elizabeth Bear, author of
Grail

“Kiernan pins out the traditional memoir on her worktable and metamorphoses it into something wholly different and achingly familiar, more alien, more difficult, more beautiful, and more true.”

—Catherynne M. Valente,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

“Caitlín R. Kiernan is a master of dark fantasy and this may be her finest work. Incisive, beautiful, and as perfectly crafted as a puzzle box,
The Drowning Girl
took my breath away.”

—Holly Black,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Red Glove

“A beautifully written, startlingly original novel that rings the changes upon classics by the likes of Shirley Jackson, H. P. Lovecraft, and Peter Straub,
The Drowning Girl
brings Caitlín R. Kiernan to the front ranks of contemporary dark fiction. Chilling and unforgettable, with a narrator whose voice will linger in your head long after midnight.”

—Elizabeth Hand, author of
Illyria

“The Drowning Girl is a brilliant work. I am in awe of Caitlín R. Kiernan and her ability to craft sentences with a spiderweb’s elegance. By the end of this novel, you will question the boundaries between dream and reality, the ghostly and the corporeal, madness and sanity.”

—Benjamin Percy

“If Shirley Jackson had ever discovered postmodernism, the result might be a little like Caitlín R. Kiernan’s tour de force of a novel. Dense, allusive, eerie, funny, and frightening, The Drowning Girl takes readers into a hallucinatory thicket of desire and mysteries—guided by the voice of one India Morgan Phelps, one of the most compelling unreliable narrators I’ve encountered in quite some time. A wild, strange ride awaits those who open this book.”

—Dan Chaon

T
HE
R
ED
T
REE

NOMINATED FOR THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD
NOMINATED FOR THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD

“You may find your mind returning frequently to this tale, attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable, and you may find yourself, like me, bowing to Kiernan’s artistry and her ability to create Mystery. This is her most personal, ambitious, and accomplished work yet.”

—Locus

“Kiernan’s chiller provides a strange and vastly compelling tale on a New England haunting, and captures its spirit unnervingly well. Kiernan’s still-developing talent makes this gloriously atmospheric tale a fabulous piece of work.”

—Booklist

“Dark fantasy specialist Kiernan delivers a creepy and engaging tale.…Horror fans will recognize the familiar Lovecraftian gothic horror elements—indeed, Lovecraft, Poe, and other writers are explicitly referenced in the text—but Kiernan’s prose is thoroughly modern…a multileveled novel that will appeal to fans of classic and modern horror.”

—Kirkus Reviews

D
AUGHTER
OF
H
OUNDS

“A thrilling page-turner that also features the depth, complexity, and unflinching willingness to contemplate the dark that we’ve come to expect from her books.”

—Locus

“A hell-raising dark fantasy replete with ghouls, changelings, and eerie intimations of a macabre otherworld.…The complex plot springs abundant surprises…on its juggernaut roll to a memorable finale…an effective mix of atmosphere and action.”

—Publishers Weekly

M
URDER
OF
A
NGELS

“In
Murder of Angels
, the darkness is poetic, the fantasy is gritty, and the real-world sections are rooted in deep and true emotions. Lyrical and earthy,
Murder of Angels
is that rare book that gets everything right.”

—Charles de Lint

“[Kiernan’s] punk-rock prose, and the brutally realistic portrayal of addiction and mental illness, makes
Angels
fly.”

—Entertainment Weekly (A-)

L
OW
R
ED
M
OON

“
Low Red Moon
fully unleashes the hounds of horror, and the read is eerie and breathtaking.”

—Irish Literary Review

T
HRESHOLD

WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL
HORROR GUILD AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL

“
Threshold
is a bonfire proclaiming Caitlín R. Kiernan’s elevated position in the annals of contemporary literature. It is an exceptional novel you mustn’t miss. Highly recommended.”

—Cemetery Dance

S
ILK

WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL HORROR
GUILD AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL

FINALIST FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD
FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL

NOMINATED FOR THE BRITISH FANTASY AWARD

“A remarkable novel…deeply, wonderfully, magnificently nasty.”

—Neil Gaiman

“A daring vision and an extraordinary achievement.”

—Clive Barker

NOVELS BY CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN

Silk

Threshold

Low Red Moon

Murder of Angels

Daughter of Hounds

The Red Tree

The Drowning Girl: A Memoir