The Arrivals: A Novel

The Arrivals is the second novel for adults by internationally bestselling author Melissa Marr.
 

Chloe walks into a bar and blows five years of sobriety. When she wakes, she finds herself in an unfamiliar world, The Wasteland. She discovers people from all times and places have also arrived there: Kitty and Jack, a brother and sister from the Wild West; Edgar, a prohibition bootlegger; Francis, a one-time hippie; Melody, a mentally unbalanced 1950s housewife; and Hector, a former carnival artist.
 


None know why they arrived there—or if there is way out of a world populated by monsters and filled with corruption.
 


Just as she did in Graveminder, Marr has created a vivid fantasy world that will enthrall. Melissa Marr’s The Arrivals is a thoroughly original and wildly imagined tale about making choices in a life where death is unpredictable and often temporary.

The book includes a P.S. section with extra material from the author and a bonus story exclusive to this paperback edition.

The Wasteland is a world beyond our own. It is a rough and ragged landscape under a two-moon sky, inhabited by monsters and creatures that could almost pass for human. Into this alternate world unwitting people are brought, from both past and present, for reasons none of them know. Chloe Mattison goes to sleep, drunk and heartbroken, in Washington, D.C., and wakes up in the Wasteland. Chloe is welcomed by Jack and Kitty, brother and sister from a Wild West frontier town. "You're one of us," they tell her, yet neither Jack nor Kitty, nor any of their companions, know why they were chosen. Two questions loom large in all of their minds: Why are we here? Is there a way out of this corrupt, demon-filled world? Equal parts The Matrix and The Wizard of Oz, The Arrivals is a page-turning adventure set in a world you will not soon forget.

“You’ll want to definitely saddle up for this one.” - USA Today

“Marr imbues [The Wasteland] with an unconventional spirit that makes everyone—displaced humans, demons, deluded villain, scary critters (some bound to their own elaborate codes of ethics), and frustrated locals—vivid and surprising.” - Locus

“Original and quirky, it’s a fun summer read.” - Washington Post

“THE ARRIVALS is wicked, weird, and fun; Marr’s imaginary world feels vividly, almost unsettlingly, real.” - Ben H. Winters, author of The Last Policeman

“[THE ARRIVALS] explores the awesome fantasy/Western conceit of a place where weaponized monks, vampiric “bloedzuigers” and other monsters roam. It’s a terrain where towns seem like they’re straight out of a wild frontier landscape and odd natives share existence with a group of people who’ve died and been resurrected in this weird environment...THE ARRIVALS straddles a line between world-building sci-fi and interpersonal, intimate drama... You’ll want to definitely saddle up for this one.” - USA Today