Books
The Rancho
Welcome to The Rancho, where belonging is a hunger,
devotion is measured in flesh, and the most dangerous lies are the ones you tell yourself.
In the summer of 1979, fourteen-year-old John Rigalow reluctantly accompanies his newly divorced mother to Rancho Carnitas, an exclusive spiritual retreat and health spa hidden in the hills of Ojai, California.
At first, The Rancho seems wondrous. The guests are welcoming, the food is extraordinary, and its charismatic founder, Dr. Henry Lull, promises healing, purpose, and transformation.
Then John’s mother decides to stay and sends him away with his father.
Haunted by her abandonment, John becomes obsessed with the man he believes stole her from him. Over the next several decades, he investigates Henry’s past, following a trail of secret experiments, missing travelers, and devoted followers willing to sacrifice everything for the man they revered.
When John finally returns to The Rancho, he finds it eerily deserted and fallen far from the sun-drenched splendor he remembers. But within its crumbling walls lie the answers he has spent a lifetime seeking and a horror he could never have imagined.
To learn why his mother chose The Rancho over him, John must confront the place that shattered his childhood and decide just how far he is willing to go for the truth.
But at Rancho Carnitas, hunger has a way of changing people.
And once you have tasted what it means to belong, leaving may be impossible.
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LO: A Novel
Willoughby, known back on Earth as "the East Hamptons of the Kuiper Belt," is the first sustainable colony on Mars.
Built by the mysterious geneticist Carlo Yakamura this settlement encourages the rich to live as they please. They can enjoy decadent homes, physically modifiable partners, meals based on their best memories and even boutique children known on Willoughby as Builds.
Designed to impress even at the dullest cocktail parties, the Builds' proprietary motive genes have been sourced from the DNA of some of the greatest artistic disruptors of the last several centuries. But even among a host of uniquely gifted Builds, Lo is unique. And uniquely unbalanced. So what would be the grisliest of murders back on Earth, is just an inconvenience on Willoughby. That is why Lo is sent to be "seasoned" by a man we come to know only as Cook.
Can Cook's fatherly hand guide Lo to a deeper understanding of his potential and purpose or is Lo's innate power destined to destroy all of Willoughby? Is Lo the key to Cook's creative redemption or is he the cause of Cook's worst nightmares? And once Cook learns the true purpose of Yakamura's Willoughby will Lo or Cook find the colony worth saving at all?
"[Tatum's] sumptuous and impeccable prose is lush, acting as a wholly engaging, intelligent and well-balanced vector through which the story takes its irresistable shape...LO delivers magnetism."—The BookLife Prize
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Only the Dead Know Burbank
A young girl awakens in a hastily dug grave—vague memories of blood and fever, her mother performing a mysterious ceremony before the world went away. Germany has lost the first great war and Europe has lost millions more to the Spanish Flu epidemic. But Maddy has not only survived, she has changed. No longer does she eat, sleep, or age. No longer can she die. After taking up with a pair of street performers, she shocks and fascinates the crowds with her ability to survive outrageous traumas. But at a studio in Berlin, Maddy discovers her true calling: film.
With her intimate knowledge of fear, death, and realms beyond the living, she practically invents the modern horror genre on the spot. Before long, she travels to California and insinuates herself in Hollywood as the genius secretly behind The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, and Frankenstein. And yet she must remain in the shadows—a chilling apparition suspended eternally between worlds.
Clever, tragic, and thoroughly entertaining, Only the Dead Know Burbank introduces readers to one of the most unique, unforgettable characters in fiction.
“Classic horror buffs will race through this novel that blends historical fiction with uncanny elements of the gothic. A perfect read for Halloween.” —BookPage
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Angie Baby
Stillman Ayers would do anything for his wife, Doloris. But when she is about to give birth to their first daughter, Angie, Doloris gives him a very particular set of instructions. Ones only a funeral director would be familiar with...
Specifically, how to feed sweet little Angie from her mother's preserved flesh...
As Angie grows, strange things begin happening around her: abnormal electrical surges and messages being received from a gifted vintage radio.
Despite all his preparations, Stillman is left to wonder exactly what Angie is and what she is capable of.
Who is behind the voice coming across the antique radio waves, whispering to Angie, and will Stillman and Angie survive the answers?
"Angie Baby is unsettling, bizarre, and oddly touching—like getting a hug from someone whose hands are suspiciously cold. Tatum serves up a story that’s part supernatural mystery, part domestic horror, and entirely one-of-a-kind. You’ll never look at a vintage radio (or a family recipe) the same way again."—Robin's Review
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Hot Berry Punch: A Novel
Emma May Shinnecock grew up wild on the remote Western prairies in the 1820s. Left free to roam and learn from the nature surrounding her, Emma’s hunger for life drives her to flaunt formal conventions as she discovers the world around her.
After embracing her first romantic liaison with a mysterious stranger, she is left with far more than a confusing introduction to love. She is now a Beguiler, a “blood thirster” with exciting new abilities and a deeper lust for life. But her condition comes with a steep price. For the Beguiler lures its victimsbyforcing Emma to appear to them as the lost loves they desire most.Can Emma ever be seen as she truly is? Or is she doomed to survive only by being what others want her to be?
From her cunning role as a frontier town madam, to her flawed redemption as a preacher’s wife, to her passionate yet tragic life among a fringe clan of the Lakota, Emma’s quest to find love is a distinctly American twist on vampire lore you won’t soon forget.
"There's a full-blooded sensuality to Tatum's writing... A propulsive prose poetry which blazes on the page."
—The Modern Custodian
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