Dead Girls Don't Dream
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
There are rules for Voynich Woods: Always carry a whistle. Never go alone. Always come home before dark. And if anyone calls your name, don't answer. Because everyone who wanders from the path is never seen again.
Except for Riley Walcott.
Riley knows better than to stray from the trail in the woods behind her uncle Toby's house. But her little sister Sam breaks the rules in pursuit of a local legend, so Riley chases after her and discovers a knife-wielding figure and a waiting grave.
Madelyn lives deep in the forest. Subject to her mother's strict rules, she's forbidden from leaving home or using her magic—but one night, she risks everything to help a stranger who's lost in the woods.
Riley is murdered in a strange ritual, Madelyn uses her magic to resurrect her, and their lives are immediately entwined in the gnarled history of Voynich Woods. Riley, who feels trapped in her small town but too afraid to leave, was never a believer, but now the evidence is taking root under her skin. Madelyn has the scars to prove how terrible magic can be, and longs for a life beyond her mother's grasp. As the legends become all too real, Riley and Madelyn must confront their deepest fears to uncover the truth about Voynich Woods.
At once tender, violent, and thrilling, Dead Girls Don't Dream is a novel of recovery, healing, and finding your power.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Teenage Riley Walcott knows all the stories about Voynich Woods and the cryptids rumored to inhabit it, and exploring it proves to be an apt outlet through which she processes her grief over her mother's abandonment of the family. When Riley is murdered by masked assailants one night deep in the woods during some kind of arcane ritual, she's shocked when she's brought back to life by a young witch named Madelyn, who lives in Voynich Woods with her powerful and domineering mother. Together, Riley and Madelyn investigate the truth behind the legends that seek to control both their lives. In the process, each discovers previously untapped power. Text by Cipri (Defekt) crackles with righteous rage that's tempered by a palpable tenderness for the vulnerabilities of adolescence. The magic of solidarity between survivors of corrupt systems is a potent force throughout this incandescent horror novel that pulls no punches, resulting in a brutal modern fairy tale whose examinations of neglect, power, and survival pay off in dividends. Major characters cue as white. Ages 14–up.
