Sixteen-year-old high school reporter Harper Spurling unknowingly befriends a teenage serial killer who is terrorizing the strange, isolated small town of Hawthorn. Welcome to the strange mountain foothills town of Hawthorn, where sixteen-year-old Harper Spurling finds herself increasingly obsessed with the diary of a local 1860s pioneer girl while a serial killer runs unchecked through the area, dumping his victims into the town's dark river. As Harper's curiosity leads her closer and closer to the killer, she'll have to think fast or join the killer's growing list of victims. Because in Hawthorn, a town built on sorrow, the barrier between life and death is as fragile as an old, forgotten skull. AGES: 12 to 18 AUTHOR: David is the author of The Town Built on Sorrow (Sept. 2017-Flux), 2016 MN Book Award finalist The Firebug of Balrog County (Flux), the Bram Stoker-nominated The Suicide Collectors (St. Martin's Press), And the Hills Opened Up (Burnt Bridge), and Wormwood, Nevada (St. Martin's Press). He holds an MFA in Writing from Hamline University and a BA in English from St. Olaf College. He lives in St. Paul, MN.