NO ONE LEAVES THE MANOR

Four debutantes compete for the chance at a multimillion-dollar inheritance—but the game isn’t what it seems.

In 1921, four young women arrive at Greystone Manor, a crumbling New Hampshire estate, to take part in a contest held by oil heiress Caroline Kane, who seeks someone worthy of inheriting her vast fortune. Dorothea Williams, a white-passing Black con artist, hopes her secrets stay hidden as she searches the mansion for traces of her long-lost mother. Three white debutantes make up the remaining contestants: shy Elspeth Taylor, tasked by her mother with restoring her family’s squandered wealth; haughty Vaughn Lennox, looking to repair her image in society after being jilted by her blue-blooded beau; and optimistic Birdie Armstrong, a polio survivor who craves adventure. But from their first steps onto the decaying property, it’s clear that something is deadly wrong. A gramophone plays music from inside the walls. A spiral staircase seems to go on forever—and demonic faces carved into the wood of its newel posts and railings appear and then disappear. As the horrors of Greystone Manor reveal themselves, the girls realize that Mrs. Kane—and the house—want something more from them. Fittingly for cosmic horror, the book plays with perspective and form, alternating narrators and incorporating verse and ephemera. With reverent adherence to the conventions of the genre, the author explores themes of race, disability, trauma, and queerness through the characters’ ultimately hopeful journeys.

Winding, atmospheric, and mysterious.