Saltsbane

Drafting

Phoebe is this close to senior year when she gets expelled, all her mother’s well-laid plans in jeopardy. Shipped off to a remote coastal town, she’s given one directive: don’t mess this opportunity up. Unfortunately, girls are going missing—and when Phoebe arrives, she suddenly finds herself at the center of the town’s intrigue.

Phoebe has a problem: she got expelled from her junior year of high school and her mother is, to put it mildly, extremely pissed. In order to escape a dreaded gap on her resume and to get her away from ‘bad influences,’ her mother leans on some of her university contacts. She manages to snag Phoebe a spot at a prestigious poetry program in coastal Connecticut, in a town named Salt Flat.

Salt Flat, dominated by a decrepit, abandoned manor called Saltsbane, is home to both Grete, Phoebe’s new roommate, and the glitteringly beautiful, seductive Silja. Grete warns Phoebe that Silja is a mean It Girl whispered to be involved in ritual sacrifice and witchcraft. 

True or not, Phoebe is drawn to Silja’s mystique: she isn’t a student at the poetry program, and, in fact, doesn’t seem to fit into Salt Flat at all. After Phoebe accepts Silja’s invitation to meet her at Saltsbane and wakes up the next morning slicked with blood with no memory of the night before, she knows something must be wrong. Perhaps Silja is a witch after all. Indeed, a poetry program student has gone missing—and Grete is sure Silja is involved both with that and Salt Flat’s missing girl problem. Chilled to the bone, Phoebe agrees to team up with Grete to figure out what Silja is doing at Saltsbane—and where all the missing girls have been going.

As Grete wraps Phoebe further into her social circle and yet another local goes missing, Phoebe worries she might be to blame for the escalation. Silja makes contact again and insists the poetry program is at fault for the missing girls—along with the Gunnarsson family, who owns everything in Salt Flat. Days slip from Phoebe’s grasp and her amnesia worsens, compounded by the threat of expulsion. Phoebe must confront what truly happened at her old school, Silja’s part in the disappearances, and discover the killer lurking at the heart of Salt Flat. The answer may lie in a ritual performed on the Winter Solstice but may be closer than Phoebe could ever imagine.

One Liner

A teen girl finds herself at the center of insidious secrets hiding the true identity of a killer in a small Connecticut town.

Comps

SAWKILL GIRLS by Claire LeGrand, THOSE WE DROWN by Amy Goldsmith, You Season Two

Audience

Teens who enjoy books with strong mental health and queer representation backgrounded by horror

Word Count

Estimated 75,000