I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the A MISFORTUNE OF LAKE MONSTERS by Nicole M. Wolverton Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

About The Book:

Author: Nicole M. Wolverton

Pub. Date: July 2, 2024

Publisher: CamCat Books

Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Audiobook

Pages: 304

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/A-MISFORTUNE-OF-LAKE-MONSTERS 

When legends bite back.

Lemon Ziegler wants to escape rural Devil’s Elbow, Pennsylvania to attend college―but that’s impossible now that she’s expected to impersonate the town’s lake monster for the rest of her life. Her family has been secretly keeping the tradition of Old Lucy, the famed (and very fake) monster of Lake Lokakoma, alive for generations, all to keep the tourists coming. Without Lemon, the town dies, and she can’t disappoint her grandparents . . . or tell her best friends about any of it. That includes Troy Ramirez, who has been covertly in love with Lemon for years, afraid to ruin their friendship by confessing his feelings. When a very real, and very hungry monster is discovered in the lake, secrets must fall by the wayside. Determined to stop the monster, Lemon and her best friends are the only thing standing between Devil’s Elbow and the monster out for blood.

For readers who enjoy Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis, House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland, Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain, and The Lake House by Sarah Beth Durst.

About Nicole M. Wolverton:

Nicole M. Wolverton is the author of the adult psychological thriller The Trajectory of Dreams (2013) and served as the editor of Bodies Full of Burning (2021), an anthology of short horror fiction through the lens of menopause. She is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer of short stories and writes creative nonfiction and essays as well. Her work has been published in over forty anthologies, magazines, and podcasts.

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Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a finished copy of A MISFORTUNE OF LAKE MONSTERS, US Only.

Ends July 23rd, midnight EST.

Top 5 favorite books.

When you write about a lake monster, it seems like books about scary things in the water are everywhere. Of course, writers should read as widely as possible, but there’s a school of thought (that I subscribe to) that avoiding reading anything related to a book while you’re writing it is a good idea. Cross-contamination, you know? With A Misfortune of Lake Monsterscoming out soon, I’ve gotten back into the habit of thinking about those scary-things-in-the-water novels, and here are some of my favorites:

1. The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco (2014). While Chupeco’s ghost Okiku has nothing to do with a lake or a river, she does come from a well (hey, water)—and Okikuis most definitely scary. A vengeful spirit in the tradition of Japanese Banchō Sarayashiki variety, Okiku’s specialty is child murders and rapists. She ends up linked with Tark, a 15-year-old boy in danger. Such a creepy story and well told!

2. My Heart Is A Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones (2021). The town of Proofrock, Idaho is positioned right on Lake Blood, a place with a horrible legend attached to it. Our main character Jade, a slasher film fanatic, has just graduated high school and sees what she believes is the beginning of a slasher film building in the town. What does that have to do with scary things in the water? Oh, read the book, and you’ll find out!

3. From Below by Darcy Coates (2022). I deeply love closed-door mysteries, horror, thrillers, whatever—and so From Below was always going to be a book I needed to read. A deep dive team heading down to the depths to get video footage of a long-missing sunken transatlantic oceanliner… and the ship turns out to be haunted? Yes, please. It’s a slow burn read and terribly eerie… and very, very claustrophobic.

4. Tidepool by Nicole Willson (2021). If horror set in the early 1900s is your thing, Tidepool is the one. Sorrow’s brother disappears, so she travels to the town of Tidepool—his last known location—to figure out what happened and attempt a rescue, if possible. The reader knows that a sea monster is afoot before Sorrow does, but that doesn’t dampen my enjoyment. It’s very Lovecraftian horror, filled with dread and gothic loveliness.

Enjoy your thalassophobia!