There are rules for Voynich Woods: Always carry a whistle. Never go alone. Always come home before dark. And if anyone calls your name, don't answer. Because everyone who wanders from the path is never seen again.
Except for Riley Walcott.
Riley knows better than to stray from the trail in the woods behind her uncle Toby's house. But her little sister Sam breaks the rules in pursuit of a local legend, so Riley chases after her and discovers a knife-wielding figure and a waiting grave.
Madelyn lives deep in the forest. Subject to her mother's strict rules, she's forbidden from leaving home or using her magic--but one night, she risks everything to help a stranger who's lost in the woods.
Riley is murdered in a strange ritual, Madelyn uses her magic to resurrect her, and their lives are immediately entwined in the gnarled history of Voynich Woods. Riley, who feels trapped in her small town but too afraid to leave, was never a believer, but now the evidence is taking root under her skin. Madelyn has the scars to prove how terrible magic can be, and longs for a life beyond her mother's grasp. As the legends become all too real, Riley and Madelyn must confront their deepest fears to uncover the truth about Voynich Woods.
At once tender, violent, and thrilling, Dead Girls Don't Dream is a novel of recovery, healing, and finding your power.
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Nino Cipri (they/them) is a queer and trans/nonbinary writer, editor, and educator. A graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and University of Kansas’s MFA, Nino’s fiction has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, Lambda, Nebula, and Hugo Awards. A multidisciplinary artist, Nino has also written plays, screenplays, and radio features; performed as a dancer, actor, and puppeteer; and worked as a stagehand, bookseller, bike mechanic, and labor organizer.
One time, an angry person on the internet called Nino a verbal terrorist, which was pretty funny.
Nino’s 2019 story collection Homesick won the Dzanc Short Fiction Collection Prize and was chosen as one of the top ten books on the ALA’s Over the Rainbow Reading List. Their novella Finna — about queer heartbreak, working retail, and wormholes — was published by Tor.com in 2020, and its sequel Defekt was released in April 2021. Nino’s YA horror debut, Dead Girls Don’t Dream, will be published by Holt Young Readers in 2024. They also write a sporadic newsletter, COOL STORY, BRO, about narrative storytelling and how cool it is. They are represented by DongWon Song of the Howard Morhaim Agency.
https://ninocipri.com/
