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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
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SMALL SPACES

Katherine Arden

A creepy, spellbinding ghost story in the tradition of R. L. Stine that is destined to become a classic.
When eleven-year-old Ollie lost her mother in a plane crash, she sought solace in her books. So when she stumbles upon a distraught woman standing on the banks of the river intent on throwing a book into the water, Ollie stops her, steals the book and rides away on her bike. Upon reading, Ollie discovers a chilling ghost story about a girl, Elizabeth Morrison, who is being chased through cornfields filled with scarecrows by two brothers with deadly intent. When she finds the graves of Elizabeth Morrison and her tormentors, Jonathan and Caleb, on a farm during a school trip, on a day already full of odd occurrences, Ollie starts to think this book is more than just a book.

On the ride home, the school bus breaks down along the side of the road and none of the kids or their teacher can get service on their cell phones to call for help. And then Ollie's digital wristwatch starts a mysterious countdown, with the word RUN spelled out on the face. She and two unlikely new friends are the only ones to heed its warning. As night begins to fall, they head out into the woods, bracketed by fearsome scarecrows. The bus driver gives them a word of advice. In order to survive whatever is coming, they'll need to keep to small spaces.

Born in Austin, Texas, Katherine Arden spent a year of high school in Rennes, France. Following her acceptance to Middlebury College in Vermont, she deferred enrollment for a year in order to live and study in Moscow. At Middlebury, she specialized in French and Russian literature. After receiving her BA, she moved to Maui, Hawaii, working every kind of odd job imaginable, from grant writing and making crêpes to guiding horse trips. Currently she lives in Vermont, but really, you never know.
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Book

Published 2018-09-25 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons

Book

Published 2018-09-25 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons

Comments

With a tantalizing pace and palpable suspense, all nicely grounded in realistic emotions, this well-wrought spine-tingler is destined to be a hit (just makes sure the lights stay on).

Riveting.The story moves at a good pace with just enough clues to keep the reader intrigued and guessing.

The perfect book to be read by firelight during a chilly autumn evening though you might find yourself inching closer to the light as the story nears its terrifying conclusion. Katherine Arden is a gifted storyteller with a wicked imagination!

Is it a mystery? A fairy tale? A horror thriller? As the suspense gripped me, I just wanted to know one thing-- WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? Terrifying and fun.

This book scared the snot out of me. Fast-paced and spine-tinglingly delightful. I defy you to read the first two chapters without staying up the rest of the night to finish. You've been warned!

With Small Spaces, Arden deftly shifts into writing for a wholly different audience. Evoking a classic strain of terror while remaining fully centered in a character driven middle grade narrative, Small Spaces is a real treat both as a reader and a bookseller. Great macabre fiction intimates darker, purposeful currents running beneath the exposition and Arden's mature sensibility is felt throughout, accentuating but never obscuring or obstructing this tightly knit tale of scarecrows, friendship, dimensional border crossings, and a dubious school field trip to a New England dairy farm. To get to the bottom of all this, Katherine was kind enough to answer a few questions. Read more...

...novelist for adults Arden's (The Bear and the Nightingale, 2017) middle-grade debut is atmospheric horror at its best. Chillingly tender.

EW.com (20 million UVPM) revealed the cover and an excerpt from SMALL SPACES by Katherine Arden today - "Halloween's spookiest new must-read"! In the article, EW calls SMALL SPACES "irresistibly spooky" and says it is "bound to be one of the biggest new titles come All Hallow's Eve"! Read more...

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