Make Me Better

A lonely woman seeks healing and kinship in an isolated island community in this slow-simmering horror from Hugo Award winner Gailey (Spread Me). After four miscarriages and multiple failed attempts to make money with multilevel marketing ventures, Celia is desperate for support and connection. She travels to secluded Kindred Cove for the annual Salt Festival, an event billed as being “about connection, purification, cleansing, and community. It’s about releasing yourself from the anchors that hold you back from the life you could be living. But more than any of that—it’s about celebration.” Celia hopes the experience will give her the answers she seeks both about her life’s purpose and the whereabouts of her missing acquaintance, Adelaide, who grew up in Kindred Cove. What she finds is an intentional community whose characteristics gradually shift from quirky to ominous. The history of Kindred Cove is gradually revealed through suspense-building flashbacks. Meanwhile, captivating characters and evocative prose draw the reader in as dread steadily mounts. Gailey does impressive work making life on the island seem pleasant enough—and Celia disconsolate enough—that it’s understandable how warning signs get overlooked or deliberately ignored. Readers are sure to be unsettled. Agent: DongWon Song, Howard Morhaim Literary. (May)