The Spirit Bares Its Teeth

New York Times bestselling author Andrew Joseph White returns with the transgressive gothic horror of our time!
Price: $19.99
  • ISBN: 9781682636114
  • Publication date: 09/05/2023
  • Page Count: 400
  • Size: 5-1/4" x 8"
  • Age Range: 14-18
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Description

New York Times bestselling author Andrew Joseph White returns with the transgressive gothic horror of our time!

Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all.

London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year. It doesn’t matter that he’s needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing.

After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanitorium. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. When the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its guts to the world—if the school doesn’t break him first.

Featuring an autistic trans protagonist in a historical setting, Andrew Joseph White’s much-anticipated sophomore novel does not back down from exposing the violence of the patriarchy and the harm inflicted on trans youth who are forced into conformity.

Author/Illustrator

Andrew Joseph White

Author

Andrew Joseph White is a queer, trans author from Virginia, where he grew up falling in love with monsters and wishing he could be one too. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University in 2022  and has a habit of cuddling random street cats. Andrew writes about trans kids with claws and fangs, and what happens when they bite back.

Reviews

★ “White wields prose like a scalpel, cutting deep and spilling guts with gruesome precision. . . . Visceral and vindicating.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

★“Redefines the concept of a ‘visceral’ book. . . . parallels to the dangerous pressure to conform (especially for trans or autistic teens) and the importance of being seen and understood are masterfully shown. . . . readers, take care.”—Booklist, Starred Review

“[A] riveting, spellbinding Victorian horror about a neurodivergent trans boy desperate to escape the life his family has planned for him. . . . White shows in this sharp, tense novel the same kind of visceral prose that garnered such acclaim for his debut, Hell Followed with Us.”—Shelf Awareness

Resources

Reading Group Guide

More Details

BISAC 1: YAF019040 Young Adult Fiction – Fantasy – Historical
BISAC 2: YAF031000 Young Adult Fiction – LGBTQ+
BISAC 3: YAF045000 Young Adult Fiction – Paranormal, Occult & Supernatural

Books By Andrew Joseph White