If Looks Could Kill

by Julie Berry

First published 2025

Autumn 1888. Jack the Ripper escapes London police and sails to New York City, hungry for fresh victims in Manhattan's shadowed streets. But an ancient force awakens to stop him. Medusa rises with serpent hair and deadly gaze, tracking the killer through the Bowery's maze of tenements and saloons. Salvation Army volunteers Tabitha and Pearl stumble into this mythic hunt when they discover a girl they once helped has been trapped in a local brothel. Tabitha brings city wit and appetite for danger while Pearl carries farm-bred resolve and grim focus. Their fragile alliance fractures under pressure as they join an ambitious girl reporter and charming Irish bartender to free the captive woman. The rescue mission spirals beyond their control when their paths cross with both the legendary Gorgon and history's most notorious murderer. In Berry's reimagining, true crime collides with ancient myth as mortal determination meets supernatural vengeance in the gas-lit streets of old New York.

Genres: adventure, action, 19th-century, alternate-history

Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful

Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, supernatural-elements

Setting: Bowery, London, Manhattan, New York City

Period: 1888, Autumn

437 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Content warnings: graphic-violence, murder

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