Beholder
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4.2 • 6 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From Ryan La Sala, author of the tantalizingly twisted The Honeys and riotously imaginative Reverie, comes a chilling new contemporary fable about art, aesthetic obsession, and the gaze that peers back at us from behind our reflections.
No one survived the party at the penthouse. Except Athan.
Athanasios “Athan” Bakirtzis has made it far in life relying on his charm and good looks, even securing an invitation to a mysterious penthouse soiree for New York City’s artsy elite. But when he sneaks off to the bathroom, he hears a slam, followed by a scream. Athan peers outside, only to be pushed back in by a boy his age. The boy gravely tells him not to open the door, then closes Athan in.
Outside the door, the party descends into chaos. Through hours of howls, laughter, and sobs, Athan stays hidden. When he finally emerges, he discovers a massacre where the corpses appear to have arranged themselves into a disturbingly elegant sculpture—and Athan’s mysterious savior is nowhere to be found. Athan—the only known survivor—is now the primary suspect.
In a race to prove his innocence, Athan is swept up in a supernatural mystery, one of secret occult societies and deadly eldritch horrors with rather distinctive taste. Something evil is waking up in the walls of New York City, and it’s compelling victims toward violence, chaos, and self-destruction. Bound to him by a mysterious hereditary power, Athan has felt this evil hiding behind his reflection his entire life, watching him. Waiting. Now, it’s taking over.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
La Sala (The Honeys) balances inventive gruesomeness with thematic depth in this bewitching horror novel, a tale laced with spine-chilling gore. Greek American teenager Athanasios Bakirtzis has lived with his yiayia ever since his parents died in a fire when he was six. Though he pretends otherwise, he knows there's a dark truth behind his grandmother's superstitions surrounding mirrors: Athan himself has the Sight, an ability to see back in time when he looks at his reflection. After attending a party from which he's the only survivor of a massacre, Yiayia disappears, and Athan meets Dom, a brown-skinned artist who sees right through the charm Athan uses to conceal his brewing guilt and anxiety. Dom believes there's a conspiracy at work that's connected to Bakirtzis family friend Uhler and the eerie wallpaper he designs. As the boys infiltrate an underground society to investigate, their connection deepens, and Athan learns new truths about the past he's been fleeing for so long. Athan is a nuanced protagonist whose struggles with grief, intimacy, and his self-destructive nature drive a queer-positive narrative that unflinchingly tackles hard questions about perception and aesthetic obsession. The result is a top-notch horror novel and a tearjerker. Ages 14–up.
