The Creeping

Book excerpt: Romance, friendship, and bone-chilling fear fill the pages of this “haunting modern-day folktale” (April Genevieve Tucholke, author of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea) about a teen whose repressed memories begin to surface when a body is discovered in her small town—now with updated text and a brand-new look! Twelve years ago, Stella and Jeanie vanished while picking strawberries. Stella returned minutes later with no memory of what happened. Jeanie was never seen or heard from again. Now Stella is seventeen and ready for everyone to move on already. Yes, she’s the lucky survivor of her town’s ugly legacy, but she’s looking forward, not back. This coming summer, Stella has a great best friend, a hookup with an irresistibly crooked smile, and two months of beach days stretching out before her. Then the body of a little girl washes up in an ancient cemetery after a mudslide, and she has red hair just like Jeanie did. Suddenly memories of that haunting day begin to return, and when Stella discovers that other red-headed girls have gone missing as well, she begins to suspect something sinister is at work. Before the summer ends, Stella may learn the hard way that when you hunt for monsters, you might find them.