We All Have Secrets Here: Death, Darkness, and Outsiders

Andrew Joseph White and Valerie Nieman take YA fans on a wild ride filled with secrets, darkness, and the pain of being an outsider. White’s Hell Followed With Us is an apocalyptic horror fest following trans boy Benji who’s being mutated into a monster by a bioweapon. Author Rose Szabo calls it “a chimera of horror, romance, and something stranger.” Neiman’s In the Lonely Backwater follows scientific-minded Maggie as she deals with the fallout from her cousin’s murder and her own personal demons, including an alcoholic father, and a mysterious stalker. Author Elaine Neil Orr says, “In this realist/Gothic hybrid coming-of-age novel, Nieman achieves a suspenseful narrative full of compassion, haunting, and desire, and instruction about the power of storytelling.”