“With her sophomore effort, Wilkes heads to the frozen Arctic region with a tale of horror and redemption guaranteed to send a chill down your spine.”
After a failed expedition, William Day never became the acclaimed Arctic explorer he hoped to be. His men survived by eating their dead comrades, his legacy a disgrace.
Now, thirteen years later, his second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the Arctic. This could be Day’s chance at redemption. Stevens has haunted him his entire life, and now Day might be able to bring him home, if he can face up to his past.
Abandonment. Betrayal. Cannibalism.
But Day has to contend with an obsessive reporter eager for dirt about the first expedition, as well as Stevens’ wife, a medium who conducts fascinating and frightening séances. On the trail of cryptic messages, gaunt bodies, and old bones, the search becomes frantic and unnerving. The restless dead are never far behind … something is coming.
Why we’re excited about this book:
When in search of icy, nightmarish horror, look no further than the works of Ally Wilkes. The author of All the White Spaces and Jamie Hallow and the End of the World (writing as A.V. Wilkes), Wilkes’ short fiction has been featured in such anthologies and periodicals as Nightmare Magazine, Cloisterfox, Three Crows Magazine, Calls From the Doors, and Found: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror Stories. With her sophomore effort, Wilkes heads to the frozen Arctic region with a tale of horror and redemption guaranteed to send a chill down your spine. Luke Dumas (The Paleontologist) says: “Where the Dead Wait is a full-body plunge into nineteenth-century seafaring, Arctic survival, and the frigid darkness of the human psyche, in a setting as frostbitten and dread-inducing as the ghosts that haunt it. I was moved by Captain Day’s inner war of longing and regret, and rewarded by the beautiful, immersive prose. With her second polar outing, Wilkes stakes her claim as the new ice-master of horror fiction.”, and Hailey Piper (A Light Most Hateful) says: “Harrowing and clawing with the iciest fingernails. The only thing harder to escape than the bloodthirsty sea is the longing and regret. Where the Dead Wait proves that the frozen nightmare is the domain of Ally Wilkes; we’re just left to survive it.”
Releasing from Atria/Emily Bestler Books 5 December 2023, Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA
