Dead Eleven
A Novel
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
"An ominously slow burn...Keep the lights on for this one."—A PEOPLE MUST-READ FOR SUMMER
"Very creepy...you've been warned."—R.L. STINE
"Gripping.”—ANA REYES
On a creepy island where everyone has a strange obsession with the year 1994, a newcomer arrives, hoping to learn the truth about her son’s death—but finds herself pulled deeper and deeper into the bizarrely insular community and their complicated rules…
Clifford Island. When Willow Stone finds these words written on the floor of her deceased son’s bedroom, she’s perplexed. She’s never heard of it before, but soon learns it’s a tiny island off Wisconsin’s Door County peninsula, 200 miles from Willow’s home. Why would her son write this on his floor? Determined to find answers, Willow sets out for the island.
After a few days on Clifford, Willow realizes: This place is not normal. Everyone seems to be stuck in a particular day in 1994: They wear outdated clothing, avoid modern technology, and, perhaps most mystifyingly, watch the OJ Simpson car chase every evening. When she asks questions, people are evasive, but she learns one thing: Close your curtains at night.
High schooler Lily Becker has lived on Clifford her entire life, and she is sick of the island’s twisted mythology and adhering to the rules. She’s been to the mainland, and everyone is normal there, so why is Clifford so weird? Lily is determined to prove that the islanders’ beliefs are a sham. But are they?
Five weeks after Willow arrives on the island, she disappears. Willow’s brother, Harper, comes to Clifford searching for his sister, and when he learns the truth—that this island is far more sinister than anyone could have imagined—he is determined to blow the whole thing open.
If he can get out alive....
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The less readers know before diving into Juliano's breathtaking debut thriller, the better. Journalist Harper Coates has come to Lake Michigan's Clifford Island in search of his missing younger sister, Willow, whose life has been imploding since the accidental death of her young son 18 months earlier. Harper doesn't know what drew Willow, a former high school English teacher in Illinois, to this peculiar place that actively discourages tourism, or why the insular locals seem obsessed with the year 1994 and insist on keeping their curtains closed at night. The terrifying reality of what the islanders are hiding—and hiding from—emerges through skillfully interwoven accounts from Harper, Willow, and Lily, a rebellious high school senior on the island whom Willow befriends before her disappearance. Juliano draws memorable characters and places them in an indelible setting, using artful prose and judicious dashes of dark humor to leave a major impression. It's a scary-good debut.
