Old Wounds

Written by Logan-Ashley Kisner

Narrated by Theo Germaine

Two transgender teens end up in a small, isolated town, where they must escape the locals who plan to sacrifice one of them to an ancient monster that only eats girls. A pulse-pounding thriller perfect for fans of Midsommar and Hell Followed with Us!

A BULLETIN OF THE CENTER FOR CHILDREN’S BOOKS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Erin and Max are two transgender teens trying to get to California. Max is desperate to finally transition, and Erin is longing to understand why she’s on this trip to begin with. The last she spoke to Max was when he suddenly broke up with her two years ago.

But when they find themselves stranded in the middle of the woods in a small Kentucky town, they realize they have much bigger problems. The locals need a female sacrifice for the monster that lives in the woods—according to them, the sun won’t come up again until the monster eats a girl . . . and it only eats what it kills. Fighting back is futile; no one selected as the offering has ever survived the night. 

When the two strangers show up, the locals believe they have the perfect candidate. The irony of the situation is almost too much to fathom.

The thing is, the locals don’t know who they just trapped as their sacrifice. They don’t know Erin’s and Max’s secrets, which could be a death sentence on a good day. And the monster that lives in their woods has never faced prey who have already fought so hard to live.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9798217014781

Logan-Ashley Kisner

Logan-Ashley Kisner is a trans and queer author born, raised and still residing within Las Vegas, Nevada. He has a BA in Creative Writing and minored in Film Studies at UNLV. On top of being an author, he is also a transgender horror historian, cat dad, and horror addict (his favorites include Ginger Snaps, the Evil Dead series and Sleepaway Camp). Old Wounds is his debut novel.

Reviews for Old Wounds

[eboods · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

This was really well done! Beautiful characters and storytelling, a compelling narrative, and it really propelled forward and rested in appropriate sections. Really great

[bibliovermis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Two trans kids heading for the legal safety of the coast become trapped in a small town where they immediately and predictively learn about the local monster that eats young women, but they're here to mess with the gender binary for man and beast alike. The horror beast is a combination otherworldly/eldritch creature and just big ol' scary beast monster in the woods, though of course the real horror is society—in macrocosm, the legal devolution and undervaluing of the safety and wellbeing of trans kids across the U.S., and in microcosm, this one, specific, terrifying small town where people think it's reasonable and maybe a little fun to sacrifice young women to their local cryptid. Maybe there are some allegories in there, but there's also just a lot of scary times in the woods—a very effective and satisfyingly scary YA horror novel.

[abiiharrisonn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

this was my very first horror book (which, with it being young adult, was a more gentle introduction, i think). i thought it explored some challenging topics for this genre, and i only wish it discussed some of them in more depth than we got. insteas, a big portion of this book felt like the characters were constantly running from one place to another, or escaping something else, or solving another problem as soon as they'd gotten over the las, which worked well for a fast-paced plot, but not so much for character development. i think some more questions could have been answered, or left out altogether if the author had no intention of answering them, but overall, a fast-paced, interesting read!!