Curdle Creek - Hardcover

by Yvonne Battle-Felton (Author)

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

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.

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 Curdle Creek, an all-Black town in rural America stuck in the past and governed by a tradition of ominous rituals. Osira is considered blessed, but her luck changes when her children flee, she comes second to last in the Running of the Widows and her father flees when his name is called in the annual Moving On ceremony.

Forced into a test of allegiance, Osira finds herself transported back in time, 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 as long as she sticks to the rules, she quickly learns there are consequences for every kindness. Each jump could lead Osira anywhere but back home.

Curdle Creek is a unique, inventive novel exploring themes of home, belonging, motherhood and what we inherit from society. This American gothic offers a mash-up of the surreal and literary horror that will appeal to fans of Ring Shout, The Underground Railroad and Lovecraft Country. Yvonne Battle-Felton's fever dream of a tale is enthralling, layered and quite unlike anything else.

Author Biography

Yvonne Battle-Felton was born in Pennsylvania and raised in New Jersey. She moved to Maryland and is currently living in Yorkshire 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 Cambridge. Her debut novel, Remembered, won a Northern Writers' Award in 2017. It was published in 2019 by Dialogue Books and was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019 and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2020. It was licensed in 2020 in the US to Blackstone Publishing.