A Multitude of Dreams

Rutherford (The Poison Season) puts a slow-burning, tension-filled undead spin on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” in this fantasy reimagining. Four years earlier, when a plague outbreak known as the mori roja ravaged the kingdom of Goslind, erratic King Stuart imprisoned hundreds of nobles and servants in his castle, known as Eldridge Hall. There, in dwindling luxury, he continues to pretend that the plague doesn’t exist. Among those trapped is Jewish 17-year-old Seraphina, who was taken from her family and now impersonates the real Princess Imogen, who died of the plague. Not too far from the castle, butcher’s son Nico serves a charismatic lord, who tasks Nico with investigating the outwardly abandoned Eldridge Hall for survivors. Along the way, Nico encounters plague victims on their way to Eldridge Hall, who wander the kingdom as undead creatures yearning for blood. In his effort to warn whoever might be there of the danger beyond the castle walls, Nico meets Seraphina, and the two are pulled into the delusions of “the mad king.” Rutherford blends romance, assumed and mistaken identities, and an atmosphere brimming with impending dread to develop a gothically sinister apocalyptic read. Protagonists cue as white. Ages 13–up. Agent: Uwe Stender, Triada US. (Aug.)