Melinda Salisbury is the author of The Sin Eater’s Daughter and several other novels that have been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, the Edgar Award, and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, among others. Her work has been published in over fifteen countries. Melinda also works as a writing mentor and volunteers at her local independent cinema.
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“Salisbury injects unique twists into common folk horror tropes around small-town politics to deliver an evocative paranormal thriller . . . Astute examinations of privilege, accountability, and the danger of conformity render Sylvie’s attempts at redemption—and the townspeople’s scapegoating of the teen in her father’s place—with piercing complexity. It all coalesces into a socially conscious and serpentine mystery topped with spine-tingling supernatural imagery.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“I burned through this tale of old magic, lush and glorious revenge, and an underestimated girl who has to lose everything in order to figure out who—and what—she really is. A brilliant addition to the canon of tales set in the wild woods.”
—Melissa Albert, author of The Hazel Wood
“Haunting and unputdownable, Local Gods had me entranced. It will make you fear and revere the forest and want to kiss a woodland god as you’re sucked into the mysteries of this twisted small town. Be prepared to fall in love, to rage, to be consumed.”
—CG Drews, author of Don’t Let the Forest In
“A highly suspenseful, darkly romantic exploration of redemption, hope, and belonging.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“With beautiful, unsettling imagery that brings the oppressive, declining resort town of Pine Ridge Hollow to vivid life, Salisbury paints a folk horror that is propulsive and emotionally serrated in equal measure. Both a broader tale of the long-creeping rot of an insular community, and a more intimate examination of a youth’s desperation after being failed by the adults that should be beholden to her—Local Gods asks us to interrogate if hauntings and the harms left in their wake are inherited or made.”
—Jihyun Yun, author of And the River Dragged Her Down
“A darkly atmospheric tale of small town secrets, angry girls, and supernatural horrors, Local Gods feels somehow familiar, yet unexpected, and completely propulsive.”
—Kate Pearsall, author of Bittersweet in the Hollow
“Local Gods is the perfect scary story to tell around a campfire, brimming with dark small-town atmosphere, romance, and the allure of dangerous deals with an ancient deity. I was spellbound.”
—Trang Thanh Tran, author of She Is a Haunting
The Sin-Eater’s Daughter combines the compelling world-building narrative style of Kristin Cashore’s Graceling with the political intrigue of Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief . . . [a] well-imagined fantasy world.”
—The New York Times Book Review on The Sin-Eater’s Daughter
“In addition to creating vivid and varied characters, Salisbury has a talent for worldbuilding, populating her world with shiver-inducing legends, original customs, and political and religious debates.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Sin-Eater’s Daughter
“I wasn’t sure whether the book would live up to my high expectations. It did.”
—The Guardian on The Sleeping Prince
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