Empty Heaven

"e;Lush and atmospheric, this grungy YA folk horror is layered with themes of queer found family, fierce friendship and recovery from trauma."e; GuardianYou are safe, my child. You are loved, my child. You are surrounded by the good earth. Darian Sabine Arden loves her family s summer home in the picturesque Massachusetts village of Kesuquosh. It s where her three best friends live, and it s the only place in her life where she isn t haunted by reminders of the worst thing that ever happened to her. The villager's belief in a godlike, benevolent scarecrow who protects the town only adds to the charming local colour. But when Darian s magnetic, mercurial crush KJ is chosen during a bizarre ritual on Halloween, Darian is forced to admit that Good Arcturus is more than just a quaint, folksy superstition he s terrifyingly real.Something ancient and sinister lurks behind the autumnal fields and warmly glowing windows of Kesuquosh. Something that doesn t take kindly to its paradise being threatened by a group of scrappy, weird teenagers. To save KJ and themselves Darian and her friends will have to follow a tangled trail of clues and question everything they thought they knew about their home. And Darian will have to finally face up to her own ghosts EMPTY HEAVEN is a YA-crossover horror novel about queer found family, redemptive romance, overcoming trauma, and the dark sides of beautiful places. Full of cinematic prose, and late-90s grunge music, it asks: who pays the price for perfection? And what if the real monsters don t always look like monsters?