Extasia (2022)

**One of BuzzFeed's Great LGBTQ+ YA novels to Warm up Your Winter * A Kid's Feb/March IndieNext pick** From New York Times bestselling author Claire Legrand comes a new, bone-chilling YA folk horror novel about a girl who joins a coven to root out a vicious evil that’s stalking her village. Perfect for fans of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Grace Year. Her name is unimportant. All you must know is that today she will become one of the four saints of Haven. The elders will mark her and place the red hood on her head. With her sisters, she will stand against the evil power that lives beneath the black mountain—an evil which has already killed nine of her village’s men. She will tell no one of the white-eyed beasts that follow her. Or the faceless gray women tall as houses. Or the girls she saw kissing in the elm grove. Today she will be a saint of Haven. She will rid her family of her mother’s shame at last and save her people from destruction. She is not afraid. Are you? This searing and lyrically written novel by the critically acclaimed author of Sawkill Girls beckons readers to follow its fierce heroine into a world filled with secrets and blood—where the truth is buried in lies and a devastating, witchy power waits, seething, for someone brave enough to use it. She was anointed to save her people. But the truest power may lie in the very evil she was chosen to fight. A Secret Coven of Witches: To fight the darkness stalking Haven, she must join it, embracing a power forbidden to women and saints alike. Sapphic Horror: In a village where to even look in a mirror is sin, two girls share a secret kiss in the elm grove, sparking a connection that could save them or damn them. Religious Horror: She was chosen to be a saint, to stand against the evil from the black mountain. But the elders’ piety may be a more dangerous poison than the Devil himself. Feminist Horror: In the tradition of The Handmaid’s Tale, this is a searing story of female rage, sisterhood, and the terrifying cost of breaking free from a patriarchal cult.