First published 2021
Peter Barlow grew up at St. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys, a remote institution tucked into a Pennsylvania valley at the turn of the century. He lost his parents to a violent murder when he was small, but St. Vincent's gave him something back: friends, routine, a sense of belonging, and priests who kept order over thirty boys. Then one stormy night, a group of men shows up at the door. One of them is dying, his body carved with occult symbols. He does not survive the night. What he leaves behind is worse than his wounds. Something old and malevolent spreads through the orphanage like a contagion, and the boys begin to change. Friendships fracture. Groups form. Children turn up dead. Peter watches the place he calls home come apart from the inside. He has to decide who to protect, who to trust, and how far he will go to hold on to the people he loves. The cost may be more than his life. This is folk horror at close quarters, where the real terror is watching a family destroy itself, and where Peter must fight for his soul as much as his survival.
Genres: historical-fiction, coming-of-age, horror, dark-fantasy, psychological-horror, gothic-horror
Vibes: atmospheric, claustrophobic, dark, emotionally-intense, haunting, suspenseful
Tropes: corruption-of-innocence, found-family, group-disintegration, moral-ambiguity
Setting: St. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys, Pennsylvania
Period: Turn of the Century
336 pages · Paperback · Orbit
Content warnings: child-death, death, violence