In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts
Stoker winner Gwendolyn Kiste holds up a dark, queer mirror to The Great Gatsby in In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts, a haunting exploration of the obsession and control at the edges of an American classic.
In 1955, Daisy Buchanan is found dead in an abandoned West Egg mansion, but her daughter Mel knows she's really been gone for years. No one knows whether Daisy was murdered, or if it was a simpler, slower death: her yearslong spiral of alcohol, abuse, and helplessness. But when Mel enters the estate, she finds Daisy's ghost, somehow frozen at twenty-three, and a charming, bleeding phantom that used to be Jay Gatsby.
To free her mother, Mel must carve a path through family secrets and decaying revelers: deep into Gatsby's starving house, as it gorges itself on unfulfilled love and grows stronger every night.
"A haunted sequel to The Great Gatsby that turns West Egg inside out and reveals all of its gory seams, In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts is a tale of two loves - one withered, one blooming - and all the ways love destroys and renews. This is a beautiful, brutal homage to Fitzgerald's eternal classic." -- Christina Henry, author of The Place Where They Buried Your Heart
"Clever, compelling, and creepy: In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts is the sapphic sequel to The Great Gatsby we have all been waiting for as fervently as Gatsby waited for Daisy." -- Johanna van Veen, bestselling author of My Darling Dreadful Thing and Blood on Her Tongue
"Gorgeous, lush and haunting in the way only Kiste knows how. The stunning and spectre-rife follow-up you never knew you needed, but won't be able to walk away from. I raise my glass." -- Laurel Hightower, author of Crossroads and The Day of the Door
"Gwendolyn Kiste masterfully dresses the glitz of the jazz era in a funerary shroud. I devoured these pages like the ectoplasm that devours Gatsby's West Egg mansion. Mel Buchanan is a heroine that I loved spending time with." -- Lisa Kroger, award-winning author of Monster, She Wrote
"In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts is a seamless continuation of The Great Gatsby, meditating upon how people, houses, families, and lifetimes can all be haunted. Gwendolyn Kiste has given us a marvelous story, peopled with well-known and well-loved characters as well as new ones we'll never forget. Gatsby and ghosts, what could be better?" -- Alyssa Palombo, author of The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel
"Heartbreaking, macabre, and utterly captivating, In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts is the feminist, sapphic sequel to The Great Gatsby we so badly needed! Kiste expertly captures the life of a woman haunted by the past and repressed by the present, leaving the reader desperately longing for her happiness. A must read!" -- Angela Sylvaine, Bram Stoker Nominated author of The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls
"A love letter to a pink suit and an American classic, Kiste's heart-wrenching story of parentified daughters, hungry houses, and careless people names grief and longing as the ghosts that haunt the chambers of our hearts." -- Tanya Pell, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Her Wicked Roots and Cicada
You can add In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts to your bookshelf at Goodreads!
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