Your Lonely Nights Are Over: The Search for Mr. Sandman - Hardcover

Sass, Adam

 
9780593526583: Your Lonely Nights Are Over: The Search for Mr. Sandman
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593526589 ISBN 13: 9780593526583
Verlag: Viking Books for Young Readers, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

Scream meets Clueless in this YA horror from Adam Sass in which two gay teen BFFs find their friendship tested when a serial killer starts targeting their school’s Queer Club.

Dearie and Cole are inseparable, unlikeable, and (in bad luck for them) totally unbelievable.

From the day they met, Dearie and Cole have been two against the world. But whenever something bad happens at Stone Grove High School, they get blamed. Why? They’re beautiful, flirtatious, dangerously clever queen bees, and they’re always ready to call out their fellow students. But they’ve never faced a bigger threat than surviving senior year, when Mr. Sandman, a famous, never-caught serial killer emerges from a long retirement—and his hunting ground is their school Queer Club.

As evidence and bodies begin piling up and suspicion points at Dearie and Cole, they will need to do whatever it takes to unmask the real killer before they and the rest of Queer Club are taken down. But they’re not getting away from the killer without a fight.

Along the way, they must confront dark truths hidden beneath the surface of their small desert community. When the world is stacked against them and every flop they know is a suspect, can Dearie and Cole stop Mr. Sandman’s rampage? Or will their lonely nights soon be over . . .

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Adam Sass began writing books in Sharpie on the backs of Starbucks pastry bags. (He’s sorry it distracted him from making your latte.) His debut YA novel, Surrender Your Sons, was named a best book of 2020 by Kirkus Reviews and Foreword INDIES, a best first novel for young readers by ALA Booklist, and one of the best YA murder mysteries of all time by Pop Sugar. He is also the author of the upcoming The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers.
 
Adam has been featured in Teen Vogue and the Savage Lovecast. He is also a recurring co-host on the popular podcast Slayerfest98, where he recaps Marvel shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and other pieces of pop culture. Find him on Twitter at @TheAdamSass and on Instagram at @itsadamsass.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

DEARIE

I’m probably the only person in school not obsessed with that Sandman show. I can’t escape it. Popular kids, nerds, teachers, janitors—-since the show dropped, everyone’s become an amateur detective. Yesterday, AP Bio didn’t start for fifteen minutes because Mr. Kirby was theorizing about the killer’s incomplete shoe print. He and my best friend, Cole Cardoso, went on and on about how modern technology could recreate the print better than seventies computers (if only the evidence still existed).

“It’s a shame San Diego PD didn’t keep better records before the FBI got involved.” Mr. Kirby sighed.

Cole was trying to convince Kirby that Mr. Sandman knew someone in the force—-a father or friend—-who messed with the evidence. But Mr. Kirby just shook his head. “Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence.”

Cole rolled his eyes. “Corrupt and incompetent, then.”

Mr. Kirby clumsily tied his obsession back into the bio lesson for the day, but nobody was mad at the distraction. For the first time in his teaching career, he had his students riveted.

Anyway, because Mr. Sandman was never found, this show has my classmates thinking he’s behind every corner. But the slayings happened in San Diego, California, and this is Stone Grove, Arizona: a rusty, dusty canyon town of twenty thousand. A lonely place to live, sure, but unlikely to see the return of a famous boomer slasher. I don’t blame people for gossiping. They like thinking something exciting could happen here.

But Stone Grove isn’t that special.

Which is why I’m not bothered about these death threats that have been popping up. They’re a prank, as simple as that. Today, Queer Club is meeting about the texting drama during free period, and I’m here to make sure they stop believing the whispers that Cole and I are behind these anonymous texts. This happens a lot—-people blaming us. Looking cute and inspiring jealousy are kind of our thing. But death threats? That warrants a public denial.

Maybe we should get publicists! High school reputation publicists should be a thing, but until that day comes, I have to make my own statements. So here I am in room 208, the Queer Club’s regularly reserved space—-where the band and choir rehearsed before they built the new auditorium. It’s a theater--in--the--round classroom with desks scattered across three levels of crescent--shaped stadium platforms. Since the auditorium opened, it’s become a flex space, either for clubs or a quiet study area—-which is why I’m a stranger here. I study in my own time.

Just kidding, I have extremely bad senioritis.

Actually, that’s also a lie. I got early acceptance to my top--choice theater school in LA, so I don’t have senioritis; it’s more likeI’m ready to leave this town so I can start living my life–-itis.

“I didn’t see you at the meeting last week,” says a pretty, upbeat white girl with long, silvery hair. Her name is Em. She’s a trans sophomore whose cheerleading social circle has never quite bumped into mine—-which is a circle of just me and Cole. Em and I wait alone in the cavernous classroom, which usually hosts a dozen Queer Club members but so far is shockingly empty.

Typical. I finally come back to this damn club and everybody ditches.

“I used to come to these Queer meetings when I was a freshman, but I just wasn’t a joiner,” I admit, brushing on a coat of cherry ChapStick. Em nods in awkward silence at her desk atop the room’s highest platform. “I’m Frankie Dearie, but everyone just calls me Dearie.”

Em smiles. “I know. You’re a big--boy senior now.” Her brow furrows. “Boy, right?”

Chewing my lower lip, I give my outfit a cursory scan: a black cropped tank with cutouts on the sides, calf--high boots, and a sheer lilac bandanna worn tightly around my throat. I snort. “Yeah, boy, but . . . I’m figuring it out.”

Em sighs into her resting palm. “I feel that.”

Tick. Tock. Where is everyone? Where’s Cole? He was supposed to be my buffer.

Em taps her pen against her cheek, watching me, clearly about to ask what she’s wanted to since I sat down. “You know . . . It’s okay if you did it as a prank—-”

“JESUS,” I groan. “We didn’t send those threats.”

Em throws up innocent palms. “Hey, I thought it was kinda funny . . .”

“Believe me, if it was us, we’d claim credit by now. Our primary goal is always attention.”

Em returns to her phone, and I return to mine. No response yet from Cole to my HELP MEEEEE, ARE YOU CLOSE? texts. I open a saved screenshot of the reason I’m sitting here in purgatory: the death threat texted from an anonymous number to two members of Queer Club.



Your lonely nights will soon be over.



Mr. Sandman used to mail the words in a note to his victim the day before he killed them. If you saw that message, you were as dead as hamburger in twenty--four hours. On the bodies, he’d leave a second note—-Your lonely nights are over—-closing the deadly circle. That’s how the news gave him the name Mr. Sandman. It’s the title of a creepy 1950s song that uses that “lonely nights” lyric.

So, half a century later, two states away, and after a show glorifying the killer starts streaming, this cursed message is sent to two of the most exhausting people in school: Grover Kendall (Queer Club’s secretary) and Gretchen Applebaum (treasurer). Now those two believe they’re either hours away from being slaughtered or the victims of a cruel prank.

Grover, Cole, and I used to be friends years ago (all of us in Queer Club used to be, actually), but it got complicated in middle school, and by high school, Grover had such a falling--out with me and Cole that he will now never miss an opportunity to shit--talk us. Who knows what Grover has been saying privately, because the dirty looks we get in public are constant. His bad vibes for us are so well known that all he had to do was put out a TikTok saying he’s the victim of bullying and the whole school jumped to us as suspects.

I thought that Cole and me showing up at Queer Club would smooth things over, or at least help everyone see the truth: we don’t care enough about these people to prank them.

Yet here I am, with no Cole, no Grover, and no Gretchen. Nobody but me and Em.

“Is this the L . . . GT . . . B club?” asks a small, dark--skinned Black freshman who has wandered inside the classroom. A janitor with a bushy mustache holds the door open for him.

Em perks up. “Yep!” The boy cautiously hugs his overstuffed...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Viking Books for Young Readers
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593526589
ISBN 13 
9780593526583
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
416
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
VTech Electronics Europe B.V
https://www.vtech-jouets.com/

Fahrenheitstraat 22
DC Weert
6003
Niederlande

Weitere beliebte Ausgaben desselben Titels

9780593690734: Your Lonely Nights Are Over

Vorgestellte Ausgabe

ISBN 10:  0593690737 ISBN 13:  9780593690734
Verlag: Penguin Young Readers Group, 2023
Softcover