No road home A novel

Fram (The Bright Lands) touches on generational curses, anti-queer bigotry, and religious trauma in this tense, supernaturally tinged locked-room thriller. By the time Alyssa Wright brings her new husband, Toby, and his feminine-presenting seven-year-old son, Luca, to her family's isolated Texas compound, the mood is already jittery. Alyssa's televangelist grandfather, Jerome, has been making increasingly dire end-of-days predictions, and someone has been splattering cryptic threats in vivid red paint across the main house's bedroom doors. When Jerome is discovered stabbed on the roof just as a powerful storm cuts off communication with the outside world, Alyssa's relatives turn their suspicions toward Toby. As he struggles to prove his innocence, and to keep Luca out of whatever nefarious plan the Wrights seem to be hatching for him, long-repressed memories of Toby's late sister start to surface. Meanwhile, Luca claims to see a ghost stalking the halls. Fram lends authenticity to the behaviors and motivations of his sprawling cast, keeping readers glued to the page as the complex plot unfurls--though certain late-stage reveals don't feel entirely fair. Still, this ambitious swing for the fences connects more often than it misses. Agent: Melissa Danaczko, Stuart Krichevsky Literary. (July)

The sins of a televangelist and his kin come home to roost. When Toby Tucker and his sister were kids, their guardian, Uncle Ezra, made them spend four hours on the couch every Sunday watching The Prophecy Hour, a "glitzy, exuberant, overwhelming televangelism program" hosted by "America's prophet," fire-and-brimstone preacher Jerome Jeremiah Wright. Now, two-plus decades and a whirlwind courtship later, Toby is married to Jerome's granddaughter Alyssa, and the couple are traveling to Hebron, Texas, with Toby's 7-year-old son, Luca, to celebrate Alyssa's 30th birthday at the Wright's compound. Toby has never put any stock in Jerome's predictions, but he is nevertheless unnerved to learn while en route that the man's most recent broadcast ended with three grim warnings seemingly intended for Toby and Luca. Toby's anxiety skyrockets when, just hours after they arrive, someone kills Jerome; a surprise storm of biblical proportions takes out the phone, internet, and access roads; and Luca starts seeing and conversing with an apparition he calls Mister Suit. Toby soon realizes the remaining Wrights are contriving to pin Jerome's murder on him. Worse, once Toby is sidelined, Alyssa and her brother Richard have plans for long-haired, sparkle-loving Luca that start with a stay at a church-run wilderness camp that destroys sweet, sensitive boys like him. The situation seems dire, but the Wright clan has no shortage of terrible secrets, and Toby won't go down without a fight. By turns searing, soapy, and spine-tingling, Fram's latest pays homage to Southern Gothic icons Michael McDowell and V.C. Andrews while also tipping its cap to modern horror great Jordan Peele. Though there's a particular contrivance on which the plot leans a bit too heavily, that's a minor quibble; exquisitely rendered, realistically damaged characters lend credence to myriad mad twists, propelling the tale from portentous start to pulse-pounding finish. Trenchant, terrifying fun. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.