Caitlin Starling & Peng Shepherd - "The Luminous Dead" & "The Book of M"

"This claustrophobic, horror-leaning tour de force is highly recommended for fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation and Andy Weir’s The Martian."—Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Luminous Dead

"A thought-provoking novel that combines the emotional urgency of a love story with a dash of magic and the dangerous thrill of a post-apocalyptic world, The Book of M is stunning debut from a talented new author." —Bustle

A reading and discussion with Caitlin Starling and Peng Shepherd, authors of The Luminous Dead and The Book of M. A Q&A and signing will follow the event.

At 57th Street Books

RSVP HERE (Please note that your RSVP is requested but not required.)

About the book: Gyre Price lies her way onto a solo caving expedition, following the promise of a hefty paycheck and a skilled topside crew to keep her company and help her survive the dangers she’ll face belowground. Instead, she gets Em.

Deceitful, single-minded, and dangerous, Em won’t hesitate to put Gyre in danger to further her own ends. Gyre refuses to die for Em, but finding a way to stop her means staying in the depths of the cave a little longer. And yet the deeper she goes, the less certain Gyre is that she’s alone in the cave. The way out is long and treacherous, and Em and Gyre might just need each other to survive…

About the author: Caitlin Starling is a writer of horror-tinged speculative fiction of all flavors. Her first novel, The Luminous Dead, comes out from HarperVoyager on April 2, 2019. It tells the story of a caver on a foreign planet who finds herself trapped, with only her wits and the unreliable voice on her radio to help her back to the surface. Caitlin also works in narrative design for interactive theater and games, and is always on the lookout for new ways to inflict insomnia. Find more of her work at www.caitlinstarling.com and follow her at @see_starling on Twitter.

About the book: Set in a dangerous near future world, The Book of M tells the captivating story of a group of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe who risk everything to save the ones they love. It is a sweeping debut that illuminates the power that memories have not only on the heart, but on the world itself.

About the author: Peng Shepherd was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where she rode horses and trained in classical ballet, and has lived in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, London, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York. Her debut novel, The Book of M, was chosen as an Amazon “Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of the Year,” and has been featured on The Today Show, NPR On Point, and in The Guardian, io9 Gizmodo, SYFY Wire, Book Riot, and Elle Canada. She is a graduate of New York University’s MFA in Creative Writing program and a winner of the Elizabeth George Foundation’s emerging writers grant.