Yes, that headline is indeed true. Next year, I will be taking the big, thrilling jump into the novel world with my debut, The Rust Maidens.

Seriously. This is going to be a reality.

As if having a novel isn’t awesome enough, The Rust Maidens will be released through Trepidatio Publishing, a division of JournalStone. After the fantastic process of putting together And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe, I couldn’t be happier to work with both JournalStone and editor Jess Landry again. It’s an honor, a privilege, and a dream come true as a writer.

The Rust Maidens delves into all the horror territory I love best as a reader and writer. There’s body horror, there’s coming-of-age, there’s a bevy of girls who are monstrous and dangerous and incredibly powerful. It’s also at once a love note and a poisoned pen letter to my Rust Belt roots, both the good and the bad of my home state of Ohio. It’s a very personal story, and one that readers will hopefully find very, very creepy.

Anyhow, let’s get down to it with the official description for The Rust Maidens!

Something’s happening to the girls on Denton Street.

It’s the summer of 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Phoebe Shaw and her best friend Jacqueline have just graduated high school, only to confront an ugly, uncertain future. Across the city, abandoned factories populate the skyline; meanwhile at the shore, one strong spark, and the Cuyahoga River might catch fire. But none of that compares to what’s happening in their own west side neighborhood. The girls Phoebe and Jacqueline have grown up with are changing. It starts with footprints of dark water on the sidewalk. Then, one by one, the girls’ bodies wither away, their fingernails turning to broken glass, and their bones exposed like corroded metal beneath their flesh.

As rumors spread about the grotesque transformations, soon everyone from nosy tourists to clinic doctors and government men start arriving on Denton Street, eager to catch sight of “the Rust Maidens” in metamorphosis. As the neighborhood withdraws from the attention and paranoia permeates the crowded split-levels, Phoebe and Jacqueline band together with the other unchanged girls, all of them as terrified they’ll be the next to change as they are terrified they’ll be the only girl left behind. But even with all the onlookers, nobody can explain what’s happening or why—except perhaps the Rust Maidens themselves. Whispering in their untrimmed backyards, they know more than they’re telling, and Phoebe realizes her former friends are quietly preparing for something that will tear their neighborhood asunder.

Alternating between past and present, Phoebe struggles to unravel the mystery of the Rust Maidens—and her own unwitting role in the transformations—before she loses everything she’s held dear: her home, her best friend, and even her own body.

So, yeah. This is real. As you can probably guess, you’ll be hearing much, much more about The Rust Maidens throughout the rest of 2017 and into early 2018 as we announce the official release date and reveal the cover. So keep an eye on this blog in the coming months for even more details! *squeals with horror writer glee*

Happy reading!