Curdle Creek - Hardcover

by Yvonne Battle-Felton (Author)

Winner of a Shirley Jackson Award

For fans of "The Lottery" and The Hunger Games, this novel set in a small town with a sinister tradition is chilling in the best possible way.

"Curdle Creek is a thoughtful, sinister tour-de-force."
―Tananarive Due, L.A. Times Book Prize-winning author of The Reformatory

Welcome to Curdle Creek, a place just dying to make you feel at home.

Osira, a forty-five-year-old widow, is an obedient follower of the strict conventions of the remote all-Black town that's stuck in the past and governed by ominous rituals including a one in, one out population policy. Though she's always been considered blessed, her luck changes when her grown children run off to parts unknown, she comes in second to last in the Running of the Widows, and her father flees after his name is called in the annual Moving On ceremony.

Forced to jump into a well in a test of allegiance, Osira finds herself transported first back in time, and then into another realm where she must answer for crimes committed by Curdle Creek. Exile forces her to jump realms again, landing Osira even farther away from home, in rural England. Safe there as long as she sticks to the rules, she quickly learns there are consequences for every kindness. Each jump could lead Osira anywhere, but will she ever find a place to call home?

Curdle Creek is an American Gothic in the tradition of Shirley Jackson that offers a mash-up of the surreal and literary horror that will appeal to fans of Ring Shout, The Salt Grows Heavy, and Lovecraft Country. Yvonne Battle-Felton's propulsive tale is layered and eerie and quite unlike anything else.

Author Biography

Yvonne Battle-Felton was born in Pennsylvania and raised in New Jersey before moving to Maryland. She currently lives in Yorkshire, England with her family. Yvonne holds an MA in writing from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in creative writing from Lancaster University. She is an associate teaching professor and the academic director of creative writing at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education. Her debut novel, Remembered, won a Northern Writers' Award, and was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize.