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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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FEVER HOUSE

Keith Rosson

Publisher Book Award winner Keith Rosson's FEVER HOUSE is a gripping and kaleidoscopic fusion of literary horror and crime fiction about the lust for power and the pursuit of love in its many forms, following a circle of criminals and clandestine government agents in search of secret weaponry, as well as a mother and her son as they desperately try to reunite on the brink of the apocalypse.
When leg-breakers Hutch Holtz and Tim Reed roll up to collect overdue drug money from a client, a severed hand is the very last thing they expect to find stashed in the addict's refrigerator. More than merely gruesome, this sinister artifact induces uncontrollable madness: anyone in its proximity is overcome with an inhuman compulsion for violence and destruction. This kind of naked evil is beyond the average gunman's pay grade, and within hours of finding it, catastrophic forces have already been set into motion: Hutch and Tim's boss is killed, cold-eyed assassins are on their tail, their beloved Portland streets are on fire, and soon, the entire world threatens to reel off its axis...

But it's all the same for Katherine Moriarty, a has-been rock star whose sudden fame and precipitous downfall during the grunge era was followed by the mysterious death of her ex-husband - suicide, allegedly. The traumas she's experienced have made her an agoraphobe, shackled within the confines of her apartment. Her devoted son Nick has moved home to care for her, quietly making his living as the middleman for a network of criminals in search of odd, rare, sometimes illegal objects - people who will spare no expense to procure a thing as precious as a demonic hand.
When Hutch calls him in possession of the unholy relic, Nick and his mother are suddenly looped into an ancient struggle that not only rips them apart, but threatens to destroy all that they cherish. What follows is a desperate mother-son quest to find each other before the world ends, while simultaneously forcing them to exorcise old memories and family secrets that have risen from the dead - secrets, they soon discover, that might hold the very key to the world's salvation.

Keith Rosson is the author of the novels SMOKE CITY, ROAD SEVEN and THE MERCY OF THE TIDE, as well as the recent story collection, FOLK SONGS FOR TRAUMA SURGEONS all published with starred reviews from award-winning indie publisher Meerkat Press (praise is attached). His short stories have appeared in Southwest Review, PANK, Cream City Review, Outlook Springs, December, Phantom Drift, and others. He is also a legally blind illustrator and graphic designer - which certainly provides its own unique challenges and rewards - with clients that include Green Day, Against Me!, and Warner Bros. He lives in Portland with his partner and two children.
Available products
Book

Published 2023-08-15 by Random House

Book

Published 2023-09-05 by Random House

Comments

A modern-meets-classic horror story that keeps the stakes high until the very last sentence.

Rosson wields the tropes and trappings of horror nimbly, balancing nicely between familial devotion, big-screen apocalyptic visions, and full-throated splatterpunk... Angels and ministers of grace don't have a chance in hell against this nasty, fun-to-read indulgence.

In this stellar supernatural thriller, Rosson makes suspending disbelief easy... [This page-turner] should win Rosson a legion of new fans.

...Fever House skimps not one bit on weirdness, darkness or suspense: It's a whirlwind mystery that involves rock stars, mob enforcers, cursed body parts and conspiracies... What sets it above and beyond his past offerings is a global scope that hurls his genre-slashing ambition into the stratosphere. Read more...

Fever House is a crazy mashup of zombie horror, gritty crime, and CIA thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Rosson's audacity and ambition shine, and the writing sings throughout. He swings for the fences here, and knocks it out of the park.

What a time to be undead! Fever House manages to feel brand new and, at the same time, an absolute classic of the horror genre. Keith Rosson has written an epic nightmare of a book, the kind that will jolt you out of whatever reading rut you've fallen into.

This book is rock and roll, horror, and noir in a blender. A bullet of a wild ride straight to Hell, and mightily entertaining along the way.

The unsettling darkness of Joe Hill meets the cryptic mystery of The X-Files, Fever House is a wild ride through a funhouse apocalypse that will stick to your mind like clotted blood.

A twisted, terrifying thriller, Fever House feels so real I had to check the headlines to make sure it was a novel. Keith Rosson's dark vision of our own world takes no prisoners - one of the year's best books.

Rosson succeeds in pushing his pulp horror conceit well beyond its edges, flushing out every nauseating, disorienting, and glorious recess. Fever House dunks you, eyebrows deep, into a miasma that lingers like a vengeful sickness - and I mean that in the best possible way.

Fever House is a punk-apocalyptic horror show with a good heart and bad intentions. The most ferocious, terrifying zombie novel since The Living Dead.

Fever House is awesome. Great writing. Also scary as Hell! A really excellent book that should not be missed.

Pulp Fiction meets a punk-rock Da Vinci Code as secret agents, hoodlums, and the son of a dead rock star get drawn into the orbit of a severed hand with dark powers in this awesomely blood-soaked, thrillingly entertaining horror-noir mash-up.

Devilishly relentless. From the hard-hitting start, Rosson drives 100 miles per hour into a clash of apocalyptic chaos. This book is concrete brutality that will leave you bruised and out of breath.

Fever House is an extraordinary novel, a wild but seamless hybrid of hoodlum noir, government agency skullduggery, punk nostalgia and the apocalypse foretold. But for all of the book's explosive narrative, the major characters are intimately and empathetically drawn with great psychological nuance, each one in their own way as unforgettable as the novel is in its totality... Rosson is a master.

The first book in a planned duology by Keith Rosson, Fever House is half terrifying funhouse and half X-Files. But it's also entirely crazy, in the best way possible. Read more...

Read An Exclusive Excerpt From Keith Rosson's Apocalyptic Novel FEVER HOUSE... Read more...

My heart was racing from the first page of this book to the last. Fever House is propulsive, gritty, smart, rock and roll, and so terrifyingly real. Keith Rosson writes cool better than anyone out there. Read this book!

[This] wildly imaginative new novel is a thrill-a-minute joyride that will keep readers guessing up to the final page... Rosson's writing is propulsive and sucks readers in, spitting them out battered and bloodied but overjoyed at the journey they've have been on... It will be snapped up by fans of the modern day masters of the genre such as Joe Hill or Stephen Graham Jones and is also a great read-alike for Grady Hendrix's We Sold Our Souls and The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias. Read more...