Little Badger’s Young Adult works encompass many genres. Elatsoe, published in 2020, blended mystery, horror, noir, ancestral knowledge, and fantasy. And Little Badger followed up with A Snake Falls to Earth in 2021 and Sheine Lende in 2024.
I’ve also enjoyed some of Little Badger’s short stories: most recently in Never Whistle at Night, an anthology of adult-interest paranormal fiction edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
Now with The Sinking House, Little Badger has crafted an eerie tale tinged with environmental awareness for middle-grade lovers of horror.
In The Sinking House, cousins Sean and Zeke, along with their classmate Jenny, follow a neighbor’s missing cat into a decrepit mansion that sits on an eroding Massachusetts coastline. But before they can rescue their neighbor’s cat, “lightning cracks, the ground rumbles, and the cliffside crumbles....
“When Sean and Jenny come to, they find themselves trapped inside a house on its side, half submerged in the ocean, leaning against a sheer wall of rock. Zeke is in a room somewhere below them — one that is filling with water. And as night falls and the storm picks up, they discover there may be something else in the house with them.
“Now, the three friends must escape before the cold water — or whatever lurks within it — consumes them.”
The Sinking House is a stand-alone adventure but it’s part of a series created by authors Justina Ireland and Hanna Alkaf, Tales from Cabin 23. “Few campers at Camp Apple Hill Farm have found the mysterious cabin rumored to be hidden deep in the woods, but those who have whisper of a mysterious woman who tells tales of horrors beyond imagination.” In The Sinking House, a camper named Vernon is the latest to discover the hidden cabin.
Because of this developing story that frames each stand-alone narrative, readers may want to read the series in order: The Boo Hag Flex by Justina Ireland, Night of the Living Head by Hanna Alkaf, and The Visitors by Yamile Saied Méndez, followed by The Sinking House by Darcie Little Badger. The series’ target readership is ages 8 to 12, grade levels 3 to 7.
Appreciation to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read a digital advance copy of The Sinking House by Darcie Little Badger.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Robust debate and even unusual opinions are encouraged, but please stay on-topic and be respectful. Comments are subject to review for personal attacks or insults, discriminatory statements, hyperlinks not directly related to the discussion and commercial spam.