{"product_id":"bride-of-the-tornado-isbn-9781683693277","title":"Bride of the Tornado","description":"\u003cb\u003e“A powerfully weird, original tale that combines American folk horror with a surreal coming-of-age nightmare.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Stephen King’s \u003ci\u003eThe Mist\u003c\/i\u003e meets David Lynch’s \u003ci\u003eTwin Peaks\u003c\/i\u003e in this surreal, mind-bending horror-thriller.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a small town tucked away in the midwestern corn fields, the adults whisper about Tornado Day. Our narrator, a high school sophomore, has never heard this phrase but she soon discovers its terrible meaning: a plague of sentient tornadoes is coming to destroy them. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe only thing that stands between the town and total annihilation is a teen boy known as the tornado killer. Drawn to this enigmatic boy, our narrator senses an unnatural connection between them. But the adults are hiding a secret about the origins of the tornadoes and the true nature of the tornado killer—and our narrator must escape before the primeval power that binds them all comes to claim her. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAudaciously conceived and steeped in existential dread, this genre-defying fever dream of a novel reveals the mythbound madness at the heart of American life.\u003cb\u003eA\u003ci\u003e Chicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book Of 2023 \u003cbr\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e’s Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror books (September 2023)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eBookRiot\u003c\/i\u003e’s Don’t-Miss Horror Novels (August 2023)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eSciFiNow\u003c\/i\u003e’s Best Science Fiction Books (August 2023)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eNew Scientist\u003c\/i\u003e’s Best New Science Fiction Books (August 2023)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePowell’s Bookstore Pick of the Month (August 2023) \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA 2024 American Book Fest Best Book Winner for Visionary Fiction\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A powerfully weird, original tale that combines American folk horror with a surreal coming-of-age nightmare.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wonderful, improbable…its dream logic unfolds into an epic, bound up in a simple tale of leaving home.”—\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Strap yourselves in for a super-storm of psycho-sexual intensity: American gothic, full-blown horror, wrapped up in an adolescent coming-of-age tale…don’t try to understand, just get swept up and enjoy the ride.”—\u003ci\u003eDaily Mail \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A Lynchian sense of creeping nastiness, rooted in the way small-town life can be stifling, pervades a novel that, as its various plot strands come together, has a whirlwind energy that’s hard to resist. Four stars.”—\u003ci\u003eSFX Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A genre-bending horror thriller that grapples with adolescent desire and existential\u003cbr\u003edread in equal measures…gooey, gory, and frightening, Kennedy's latest will appeal to fans of coming-of-age horror.”—\u003ci\u003eBooklist \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Kennedy puts an eerie, surrealist twist on the American Midwest, highlighting everything unusual about small-town living... Horror fans who value ambiance over jump scares will want to check this out.”—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“This genre-defying horror-thriller, delves into surreal, mind-bending depths. James Kennedy, author of \u003ci\u003eDare to Know \u003c\/i\u003eis back with more mythical madness of bizarre Americana; painting a chilling portrait of small-town living. Fans of eerie, atmospheric horror will be hooked.”\u003ci\u003e—SciFi Now\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Depraved, hilarious, and genre-bending.”—Kathleen Rooney, \u003ci\u003eBrooklyn Rail\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Reads like a fever dream wrapped inside of techno-colored nightmare and viewed through a kaleidoscope . . . Kennedy keeps the reader hooked with his vivid descriptions and the narrator’s infinite curiosity, trying to make sense of the messy business. Anyone looking for a surreal, supernatural thriller with mysterious undertones will be blown away by \u003ci\u003eBride of the Tornado.“—Manhattan Book Review \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A fever dream for adults who want to be surprised...a high-velocity twister of a ride.”—Lori Rader-Day at \u003ci\u003eChicago Review of Books  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A twisty, startling, atmospheric Midwest Gothic with the unstoppable power of a freight train and the moody ambience of a mist-shrouded diner at midnight. I could not put it down, and the ending left me in pieces.”—Delilah S. Dawson,\u003ci\u003e New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e-bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eStar Wars: Phasma, Bloom, Wake of Vultures, and more \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“An utterly unique coming-of-age horror-thriller..deadpan creepy, extremely weird, and totally satisfying.”—Laini Taylor, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e-bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eStrange the Dreamer and the Daughter of Smoke and Bone\u003c\/i\u003e trilogy \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“It’s downright unsettling…a wildly original and haunting coming-of-age story.”—Cavan Scott, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times-\u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author of \u003ci\u003eStar Wars: The High Republic, Shadow Service\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eJames Kennedy \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of the horror thriller \u003ci\u003eBride of the Tornado\u003c\/i\u003e, which the \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e named one of the “Best Recent Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Novels” in September 2023. James‘s previous books include the sci-fi novel \u003ci\u003eDare to Know\u003c\/i\u003e, which was named by the \u003ci\u003eTimes Saturday Review\u003c\/i\u003e as a Best Sci-Fi Book of 2021, and the young adult fantasy \u003ci\u003eThe Order of Odd-Fish\u003c\/i\u003e. In addition, James is the founder of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, an annual video contest in which kid filmmakers create short movies that tell the entire stories of Newbery-winning books in about 90 seconds. He also hosts the \u003ci\u003eSecrets of Story\u003c\/i\u003e podcast with Matt Bird. James lives in Chicago.They called it Tornado Day but none of us knew what it was about. Mom and Dad wouldn’t tell us. Neither would our teachers. I never remembered having a Tornado Day before and neither did Cecilia or any of our friends or anyone at school.\u003cbr\u003e     All that week leading up to Tornado Day, Mom and Dad didn’t let us eat much. I wasn’t even supposed to feed Nikki. Breakfast was, like, one piece of dry toast. Lunch was a hard-boiled egg. Dinner was nothing. Late one night Cecilia and I were so starving we snuck some blueberry Pop-Tarts to eat in her bedroom, but they tasted wrong. I felt guilty somehow and ended up throwing most of mine out.\u003cbr\u003e     I fed Nikki anyway.\u003cbr\u003e     All that week we weren’t allowed to watch TV. We couldn’t even listen to the radio. Dad unplugged everything—the VCR, the stereo, the microwave, the alarm clocks, all the way down to the toaster and the coffee maker. He and Mom took the batteries out of the flashlights, the boom box, my Walkman, and even old toys Cecilia and I hadn’t touched in years. They unscrewed the light bulbs and put them in a box along with the batteries. The refrigerator was cleared out.\u003cbr\u003e     Mom and Dad stopped talking to us. It was the same with everyone else’s parents. Someone said it’s what you had to do to prepare. Prepare for what?\u003cbr\u003e     Nobody would tell us.\u003cbr\u003e     A killer was coming to town.\u003cbr\u003e     That’s what we heard from the other kids. We were all scared. We asked, is the killer coming for us?\u003cbr\u003e     The adults wouldn’t say.\u003cbr\u003e     The day before Tornado Day all the stores closed early. We didn’t have to go to school. The house was quiet except for the patter of rain and Nikki meowing in the kitchen.\u003cbr\u003e     It wasn’t much of a holiday.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGrowing up, when there were tornadoes, Mom and Dad and Cecilia and I would all run down to the basement with candles and food grabbed from the kitchen, and when the electricity blacked out we’d light the candles and set them all around the cold gray basement until it flared up like a cathedral. The candles pushed back the darkness and made it dance, colors multiplied, became richer and warmer. We’d hear the tornado raging outside, pounding at the doors and windows, shrieking like it was mad at us personally, but I felt safe, locked down in the concrete basement, cozy and cared for, but just dangerous enough for me to feel a thrill.\u003cbr\u003e     I liked the tornadoes because they forced Cecilia and Mom and Dad and me to hang out together. We played Monopoly and Clue, we listened to our little transistor radio, Dad told funny stories—I wanted more tornadoes, more thunderstorms, because I wanted us to be close like this all the time.\u003cbr\u003e     But when the lights flickered back on, when the all-clear siren sounded, Mom and Dad would get up from our game too quickly, “Finally!” they’d say; Cecilia, too, would bolt up the stairs, and then I would be left alone on the basement’s concrete floor with the abandoned game, surrounded by old exercise equipment and Halloween costumes and yellowing paperbacks, feeling a little disappointed because it was finally my turn and nobody wanted to play anymore.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was still dark outside when Mom woke us up. It was a raw April morning, black and wet. Drizzle and fog and low, heavy clouds. It was four a.m. Way too early. The electricity was back on, but after a week without it the light from the hallway looked jarring on the carpet, it cut too bright and hard through the dark. I stayed under my blankets. I had secretly put new batteries in my Walkman and it was under my pillow and the headphones were still on my ears. I’d fallen asleep with it on again. Nikki was awake but she was just staring at me with her yellow slit eyes. I stroked her and she purred but I already knew it was going to be a bad morning. Rushing my shower while Mom banged on the door. The bathroom stinking of Cecilia’s toxic hair spray. Everyone fighting.\u003cbr\u003e     A normal day.\u003cbr\u003e     Not normal, though. Usually, Dad was already off to work before any of us woke up—I never saw him in the morning, I’d just come into the kitchen and see his bowl of milky cereal dregs in the sink, which always depressed me for some reason. But this morning was wrong, everyone’s schedules collided. Dad was clunking around in the kitchen, blinking at us like he was still half asleep. Mom usually slept in, but this morning she was up and ordering us around, looking frazzled in her ratty blue robe and huge curlers. \u003cbr\u003e     She’d laid out two dresses for Cecilia and me to wear to school for Tornado Day. I’d never seen these weird dresses before. They were old-fashioned flower-print things with puffy sleeves and lace trim. Like something a pioneer girl would wear in an old movie. Cecilia slammed her bedroom door. There was no way she’d wear that crappy dress to school, she shouted at Mom. Everyone would make fun of her, she said.\u003cbr\u003e     I didn’t want to wear mine either. The dresses smelled sour, like\u003cbr\u003ethey’d been boxed up somewhere for a long time. But I put it on anyway. I cleaned out Nikki’s litter box as Mom and Cecilia yelled at each other. I kind of hated myself for it, but whenever Cecilia fought with Mom, something in me wanted to be really good, to balance the family out.\u003cbr\u003e     Cecilia won. Mom said go ahead—fine, don’t wear the dress! But you’ll be sorry! Now I was the only one wearing an ugly, stale-smelling dress but the bus was already pulling past our house, way\u003cbr\u003etoo early. There wasn’t time for breakfast, not even to grab a bite on the way out. Cecilia and I had to run to the corner to catch up with the bus. We got on and its doors hissed shut.\u003cbr\u003e     The morning was still as dark as night.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turned out everyone had dressed up for school that day. All the boys wore awkward suits and all the girls wore old-fashioned dresses.\u003cbr\u003e     Cecilia stuck out in her normal jeans and her pink sweater. She went to the girls’ bathroom and stayed there. Mr. McAllister asked Mrs. Bindley to go in and get her. Some of the popular girls were snickering at Cecilia. I happened to be standing near them when Mrs. Bindley came out of the bathroom, pushing Cecilia along by her elbow.\u003cbr\u003e     As they walked past us Cecilia said to me, “You just keep on laughing.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe were going to meet the tornado killer.\u003cbr\u003e     What tornado killer? None of us knew about any tornado killer. That’s how you know he’s a good tornado killer, the teachers said—when’s the last time you even saw a tornado? We had to admit, not since we were little. But, we said, you always heard about tornadoes in other towns! Exactly, the teachers said. But not here. Would we recognize the tornado killer? They said no, it’s against the law for the tornado killer to actually come into town. He does his work outside city limits. But today is a special occasion, they said. Today is Tornado Day.\u003cbr\u003e     Some of the younger kids were scared. They begged their teachers, please, please, no, we don’t want to meet the tornado killer.\u003cbr\u003e     Everyone meets the tornado killer, was the firm reply.","brand":"Quirk Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300347859173,"sku":"NP9781683693277","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781683693277.jpg?v=1767723072","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/bride-of-the-tornado-isbn-9781683693277","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}