It Will Only Hurt for a Moment

In this highly atmospheric horror-thriller from the Stoker Award-nominated author of The Violence, a young woman hopes to reinvent herself at an isolated artists’ colony. . . only to be drawn into its dark, twisted past.

Sarah Carpenter is starting over.

She’s on the run--leaving behind her unsupportive, narcissistic ex-boyfriend and alcoholic, abusive mother--headed for a new beginning at Tranquil Falls, a secluded artists’ colony. There, with no cell signal or internet to distract her, she hopes to rediscover her love for pottery and put the broken pieces of her life back together.

But when Sarah finds the body of a young woman while digging a hole for a pit kiln, things start to fall apart. Her fellow artists begin to act in troubling ways. The eccentric fiber artist is knitting an endless scarf. The musician plays the same carousel song over and over until his fingers bleed. The calligrapher grins with ink-stained teeth. Not to mention the haunting dreams Sarah has been having night after night.

When she discovers glass shards in her clay, Sarah begins to wonder if someone is out to get her--or if she’s losing her grip on reality out here in the wilds, where the pounding of the waterfall never, ever fades. As she investigates the beautiful valley and the crumbling resort looming over them all, she unearths a chillingly horrific past that can no longer remain buried. . .

Delilah S. Dawson is the author of the New York Times bestseller Star Wars: Phasma, as well as Star Wars Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade, Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire, Guillotine, Bloom, The Violence, Camp Scare, Mine, Midnight at the Houdini, Disney Mirrorverse: Pure of Heart, the Minecraft Mob Squad series, the Hit series, the Blud series, the creator-owned comics Ladycastle, Sparrowhawk, and Star Pig, and the Shadow series (written as Lila Bowen). With Kevin Hearne, she co-writes The Tales of Pell. She lives in Georgia with her family.