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RED TOOTH AND CLAW

Lish McBride

This edge-of-your-seat YA horror for fans of Dread Nation and Westworld flips Western archetypes for a gritty, edgy, and wholly original read.
Faolan Kelly's grandfather is dead. She's alone in the world and suddenly homeless, all because the local powers that be don't think a young man of sixteen is mature enough to take over his grandfather's homestead.and that's with them thinking Faolan is a young man. If she revealed that her grandfather had been disguising her for years, they would marry her off at the first opportunity. The mayor finds a solution that serves everyone but Faolan: He hires a gunslinger to ship her off to the Settlement, a remote fort where social outcasts live under the leadership of His Benevolence Gideon Dillard. It's a place rife with mystery, kept afloat by suspicious wealth. Dillard's absolute command over his staff just doesn't seem right. And neither do the strange noises that keep Faolan up at night. When Faolan finds the body of a Settlement boarder, mangled by something that can't possibly be human, it's clear something vicious is stalking the palisades. And as Settlement boarders continue to drop like flies, Faolan knows she must escape to evade the creature's wrath. Lish McBride is the author of funny and creepy young adult books such as Hold Me Closer, Necromancer; Necromancing the Stone; Firebug; Pyromantic; and Curses. She has published short stories on Tor.com, and in the anthologies Cornered, What to Read in the Rain, and Kisses & Curses. Her first book, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults title, a Morris Award finalist, and the winner of the Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award. Lish is a former indie bookseller, has a MFA from University of New Orleans, and prefers pie to cake. While she has no long term goals for world domination, she would like her own castle.
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Published 2024-10-08 by Putnam Books for Young Readers

Comments

Magic, murder, mystery, and mayhem, all set in against a wild, Western backdrop. I have never read anything like this. A terror and a true delight, all wrapped up in a gritty bow.

*A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection* *An Amazon, B&N Reads, and Kobo Best Book of the Month*

In this eerie, blood-splashed Western, Lish McBride's prose invokes a frontier that is harsh, cruel, and practical, allowing moments of warmth to shine all the brighter. Every time I put it down I picked it right back up. Just a damned enjoyable novel.

A heart-fluttering romance develops alongside the spooky magic and gunslinging....Mysteriously spooky and ultimately heartwarming.