Macabre
Fiction
Winnipeg's Susie Moloney is Back
Susie Moloney will be launching The Thirteen with us, at McNally Robinson Grant Park, Thursday June 8th. For event information in our Winnipeg store, please click here.
Born Susie Schledwitz and raised in Winnipeg, Moloney has been writing stories with a touch of the macabre for as long as she can remember. Her first novel, a horror story about wolves, was returned unopened by the New York City publishers she mailed it to. But she didn’t give up. After moving to Manitoulin Island in Northern Ontario, she began a book she was determined to get published. A few sample chapters convinced Toronto agent Helen Heller to take on Moloney, and in 1995 her first novel Bastion Falls was released. The book achieved modest sales, but paved the 
way for her 1997 novel A Dry Spell. The book was bought by Bantam Doubleday Dell in the United States and Doubleday in Canada. Tom Cruise’s production company scooped up the film rights, and publishing contracts were struck in 13 other countries, adding up to a deal in the neighborhood of $2.5 million. In 2003 she published The Dwelling — and then paused, until now.
Long awaited, The Thirteen (Hardcover. $29.95) 
shines with Moloney’s quirky and unsettling sense of the macabre. Nothing is what it seems in Haven Woods, a great place to raise a family. It’s close to the city, quiet, with great schools and its own hospital. Property values are climbing, the streets are clean, the yards are kept. The crime rate is practically non-existent, unless you count the odd human sacrifice, animal attack, dismemberment, demon rape and blood atonement. Oh.
When Paula Wittmore goes home to Haven Woods to care for a suddenly ailing mother, she brings her daughter and emotional baggage and an opportunity for twelve of her mother’s closest frenemies, who like to keep their numbers at thirteen. And her daughter, young and innocent, is a worthy gift to the darkness. A circle of friends will support you through bad times. A circle of witches can drag you to hell. (Random House. June)
