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Young Adult Fiction Thrillers & Suspense

Blood Will Out

by (author) Jo Treggiari

Publisher
Tundra Book Group
Initial publish date
Jun 2018
Category
Thrillers & Suspense, Mysteries & Detective Stories, Horror
Recommended Age
14 to 18
Recommended Grade
9 to 12
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780735262959
    Publish Date
    Jun 2018
    List Price
    $21.99
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780735262973
    Publish Date
    Jul 2019
    List Price
    $13.99

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Description

Silence of the Lambs for young adults -- Blood Will Out is a gripping YA thriller readers won't be able to put down.

Ari Sullivan is alive--for now.
She wakes at the bottom of a cistern, confused, injured and alone, with only the shadowy recollection of a low-pitched voice and a gloved hand. No one can hear her screams. And the person who put her there is coming back. The killer is planning a gruesome masterpiece, a fairytale tableau of innocence and blood, meticulously designed.
Until now, Ari was happy to spend her days pining for handsome, recent-arrival Stroud Bellows, fantasizing about their two-point-four-kids-future together. Safe in her small hometown of Dempsey Hollow. But now her community has turned very dangerous -- and Ari may not be the only intended victim.
Told in alternating perspectives of predator and prey, Blood Will Out is a gripping and terrifying read.

About the author

Jo Treggiari was born in London, England, and raised in Canada. She spent many years in Oakland, California, and New York, where she trained as a boxer, wrote for a punk magazine, and owned a gangster rap/indie rock record label. Her novel Ashes, Ashes, a YA post-apocalyptic adventure published by Scholastic Press, was a multiple award nominee and bestseller. Her acclaimed novella Love You Like Suicide, appeared in the Fierce Ink Press anthology Becoming Fierce: Teen Stories IRL and as a limited edition of the long-running zine Cometbus. Her most recent YA novels are Blood Will Out, a psychological thriller, published by Penguin Teen (2018), and a second thriller, The Grey Sisters (Penguin Teen, 2019), which was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary award and was shortlisted for an Arthur Ellis award.

Jo Treggiari's profile page

Excerpt: Blood Will Out (by (author) Jo Treggiari)

Someone seemed to be shouting her name from far away—“Ari Sullivan!” She sat up and was instantly rocked bya wave of nausea and an excruciating pain that knifed through her head. She clutched her stomach and moaned. She was breathing too rapidly and she felt as if she were about to pass out. She forced herself to take deep breaths, counting between inhalations. Gradually the pain subsided to a throbbing ache and she peered around in shock. She could see nothing. Was she blind? She blinked rapidly but there was no difference.
It was dead quiet except for the thrum of blood in her ears. Pushing herself onto her knees, she crawled forward a few inches. She could feel earth under her fingers, smell the dank rooty cool of it. She ran shaking hands over her body. She was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, a sweatshirt and running shoes. She ached all over but nothing seemed broken, except for maybe her head. There was a lump at the back of her skull, but the worst injury originated just above her ear. She probed that area and felt a mushy spot. How had she hit her temple? She moved her head gingerly, half-afraid it might detach from her neck. Another crescendo of pain battered at her and she breathed through her nose, imagining that she was at the cool blue bottom of the pool. Take stock, she told herself, remembering the guidelines she’d learned in lifeguarding. Assess the injury. Her neck muscles were stiff but her spine was all right; her fingers wiggled, and she could feel her toes even though she couldn’t see them.
Okay, so she’d live, probably. Now, where was she? Her brain cried in agony, as if all her nerve endings were centered in her skull, but she struggled to focus. Clearly she’d had an accident, fallen down the stairs to the cellar. But not her cellar, she decided, trying to pin down the muddied swirl of her thoughts. Her cellar was concrete-floored and brightly lit and smelled of laundry detergent and fabric softener. Not rotted leaves and swamp water. She was somewhere unknown.
“Mom, Dad?” she breathed, as if the sound of her voice might summon something terrible from the pitch black. All the horror movies she and Lynn had giggled over came back to her in a flood.
The darkness pressed down, a physical weight as if she were pinned under two tons of water. She held her eyelids open with her fingers and still there was nothing—not a flicker of light. This must be what it felt like to be buried alive. And with that thought, it seemed suddenly as if there were not enough air. She gulped, choked, desperate to fill her lungs, and felt the hysteria swell until it burst from her.
“Help! Help! Please!” Over and over until, propelled by rising panic, she was on her feet, unsteady and swaying, her voice ripping out of her throat. “Anyone!”

Editorial Reviews

PRAISE FOR Blood Will Out:

"Involving, well-constructed, and hard to put down." --Midwest Book Reviews
“A heart-pounding psychological drama. . . . [A] thriller that provides much room for thought.” --Atlantic Books Today

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