by Chuck Wendig
First published 2025
Five high school friends have sworn an oath to protect one another no matter what. During a camping trip, they stumble upon something impossible: a staircase standing alone in the middle of the woods, leading nowhere. One of them decides to climb it. He goes up but never comes back down. Then the staircase vanishes completely, leaving the remaining four friends with no answers and a lifetime of guilt. Twenty years pass. The survivors have built separate lives, but they cannot escape what happened in those woods. When the mysterious staircase reappears exactly where they found it decades ago, the friends reunite for one purpose: to climb those steps and find their lost companion. They must discover what lies beyond the staircase and confront the truth about what took their friend away from them.
Genres: adventure, mystery, fantasy, supernatural, contemporary, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, missing-person, supernatural-mystery
Setting: Woods
Period: 20 Years Later
400 pages · Hardcover · Del Rey