Itza, the “world’s most advanced smart speaker” was Vera’s idea. Thiago wasn’t interested in Itza, but maybe it would be fun considering all the other strange things happening in their condo. Then came the cold spots, the scratching coming from in the walls, the unordered packages arriving … industrial lye? The music and weird light shows Itza plays to empty rooms.
After Vera was killed, it wasn’t funny anymore. Now things are quite unbearable for Thiago. Vera’s friends beg him to let go and move on, politicians want to use her death to further their agendas.
Thiago keeps waking to the sound of Itza talking to someone in the other room.
He leaves Chicago to get away from everything. Colorado seemed like the place to be. But there’s no escape for Thiago. He cannot escape the guilt, the rage, and certainly not the evil feeding off all that grief and pain, determined to find a way to break through into this world.
Why we’re excited about this book:
Relatively new to horror fiction, Gus Moreno appears to be ready to take readers on a wild and terrifying ride. Moreno’s short fiction has been published in such publications as Aurealis, Bluestem Magazine, and LitroNY, with fiction over at PseudoPod, and in the anthology Burnt Tongues. With his debut novel, Gus Moreno blends modern technology with the pain and grief of a widower who discovers something evil is trying to break its way into our world. Brian Evenson (Song for the Unraveling of the World) says: “This Thing Between Us brings the very real horrors of living in the world into blazing contact with a supernatural strangeness that refuses to be subsumed into any pattern we can categorize, dissect, and exorcize. In Gus Moreno’s strong, original first novel, reality floats over a void, always threatening to seep out and engulf us.”, and Stephen Graham Jones (My Heart is a Chainsaw) says: “The worst kind of grief, technology that activates all your paranoia, and a line between madness and sanity that’s so blurry as to not even matter . . . Hold on, this isn’t a ride, it’s a slide, and it doesn’t care whether you’re ready or not.”
Forthcoming 12 October 2021 from MCD x FSG Originals, This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA