“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.
BIO
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 the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education. 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.
REVIEWS
Named one of the New York Times’ “21 New Books Coming in October”
Named one of People’s “Must-Read Books of Fall 2024”
“Funny and terrifying.” -- Caroline Leavitt, People
“Mind-bending...The debt to Shirley Jackson’s 'The Lottery' is obvious, but Battle-Felton is drawing from a deeper well of influences, including Toni Morrison’s lyricism, the time-travel elements of Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred and the alternative universe of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. . . . Battle-Felton imagines this world exceedingly well. And she never loses sight of the novel’s central theme: how the need for communities to protect themselves unleashes its own anxieties and traumas.” -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“While it obviously owes a lot to The Lottery and would appeal to Jackson’s fans, the strong world-building and genre-bending action would also make it a good fit for readers who enjoyed Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country (2016), Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (2016), or P. Djèlí Clark’s Ring Shout (2022).” -- Booklist
“Curdle Creek is a thoughtful, sinister tour-de-force. Yvonne Battle-Felton writes so convincingly that the reader is forced to ponder what unthinkable choices we mask behind our own quest for belonging, and what wrongs we must answer for.” -- Tananarive Due, Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winning author of The Reformatory
“The nightmarish and allegorical Curdle Creek is a gorgeously written, surrealist folktale that goes bone deep. Compelling, thought-provoking, thrilling, haunting, Yvonne Battle-Felton's Curdle Creek is simply a marvel.” -- Paul Tremblay, bestselling author of The Cabin at the End of the World and Horror Movie
“Tautly written, utterly gripping, Yvonne Battle-Felton's novel invites the reader into a world of mystery and mythology. Ultimately, Curdle Creek is about perseverance and hope, about remembering the past while boldly embracing the future and about posing the eternal question: how and where can a Black person simply be?” -- Carolyn Ferrell, author of Dear Miss Metropolitan
[H] Henry Holt & Company / October 15, 2024
1.06" H x 8.56" L x 5.9" W (0.82 lbs) 304 pages