Desert Creatures
A young girl and her father take a desperate pilgrimage through a blasted post-apocalyptic Mojave Desert to the Holy City of Las Vegas in this vivid and uncanny tale of outsiders in a dangerous world, perfect for fans of Lucy A. Snyder and Jeff Vandermeer.
An unknown devastation has swept across the United States, a sickness causes the dead to flower and sprout fruit, and the promise of miracles draws pilgrims from all over to the Holy City of Las Vegas. Magdala and her father flee their home in the Sonora Desert, setting out across the wasteland in search of a cure for her disability. As they pass through blasted cities and ruined towns, they are forced to join with a group of survivors making their own pilgrimage. But the road to Las Vegas is filled with danger, strange cults occupying the wreckage of towns, and uncanny stuffed men roaming the desert.
As a strange sickness begins to take hold, the band of survivors grows ever thinner, and months turn to years. Magdala finds herself placing her trust in the most unlikely of places, and the closer she gets to her holy destination, the further from salvation she seems.
Kay Chronister is a finalist for the Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Awards for her short fiction, which has appeared in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Dark, and elsewhere. Her first collection, Thin Places, was published by Undertow Publications in 2020. Originally from Washington State, she has spent time in Virginia, Cambodia, and Arizona. She now lives in the Philadelphia area with her dogs and her husband. Desert Creatures is her first novel.
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