Hokalua Road cover reveal & preorder information

Elizabeth’s next book is a crime novel set in Hawaii, arriving July 19, 2022 on Mulholland Books, and is available for preorder now! Check out the cover art and full synopsis below:

A young man is drawn into the dark side of paradise in this haunting and atmospheric mystery about the eerie secrets of one Hawai’ian island—and the lengths some will go to keep them.

On a whim, Grady Kendall applies to work as a live-in caretaker for a luxury property in Hawaiʻi, as far from his small-town Maine life as he can imagine. Within days he's flying out to an estate on remote Hokuloa Road, where he quickly uncovers a dark side to the island’s idyllic reputation: it has long been a place where people vanish without a trace.

When a young woman from his flight becomes the next to disappear, Grady is determined—and soon desperate—to figure out what's happened to Jessie, and to all those staring out of the island’s “missing" posters. But working with Raina, Jessie’s fiercely protective best friend, to uncover the truth is anything but easy, and with an inexplicable and sinister presence stalking his every step, Grady can only hope he'll find the answer before it's too late.

From award-winning writer Elizabeth Hand, a master of crime fiction known for her magnetic characters, seductive prose, and fearless excavations into the darkest corners of our world, comes a chilling and illuminating new novel about a place unlike any other—and the deadly cost of keeping it so.

Publishers Weekly interview about Hokuloa Road

Publishers Weekly chats with Liz about her upcoming novel Hokuloa Road, isolation, climate chance, and the Hawaii the tourists don’t see.

I’m fascinated by folklore, and setting determines so much about how a folklore develops. Dog spirits, the kaupe, are recurring characters in Hawaiian lore; I wanted to embellish while being respectful. Hawaii is a remote place that was a sovereign nation, and there’s a lot of politics around that. There’s a great deal of income disparity, as there is in Maine. There are wealthy Covid refugees who can afford to move to the islands, and then there’s also a terrible housing shortage—there are houseless camps, and quite a few resort employees, people in the service industry, just living on the beach, because they can’t afford a place to live.

Read the entire interview at Publishers Weekly.

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Elizabeth Hand Guests on Fantastic Fiction at KGB Reading Series

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Liz was co-guest with author Michael Libling for the Fantastic Fiction at KGB, a monthly speculative fiction reading series, that was held as a livestream event on Wednesday, August 19th. The series is hosted by Ellen Datlow and Michael Kressel.

You can watch the reading in its entirety on YouTube:

FANTASTIC FICTION at KGB reading series, hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present​​​: Elizabeth Hand and Michael Libling Streaming live on YouTube, Wed...

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Elizabeth Hand and John Crowley discuss Curious Toys and speculative vs. historical fiction

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Boston Review featured a review of Curious Toys and a discussion between Elizabeth and author John Crowley, touching on speculative vs. historical fiction, Darger as a character, the outlandish and outsiders, and much more.

John Crowley: Historical fictions are designed largely as a sort of medley: true details of time and place, actual persons of the period treated as fictional characters with their own point of view, invented persons who interact with the historical ones, real events that will form memories for the real people and for the fictional ones. You’ve long been drawn to this kind of fiction and its possibilities. What do you think its power is, for writer and reader?

Elizabeth Hand: Well, as you know yourself, history is an immense sandbox for a writer to play in. I would add “fulfilling,” but can a sandbox be fulfilling? I love research, searching for and delving into primary sources in hopes of discovering some nugget of information that’s somehow gone unnoticed, that I can then use in a story. And while I always try to create as authentic and absorbing a portrait of a period as I can, I love playing with all the what ifs of history. Darger and Chaplin and Hollywood screenwriter Ben Hecht and others were all in Chicago at the same time: what if their paths crossed in some way?

Read more at Boston Review.

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Best Of Lists & More Reviews for Curious Toys

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Happy 2020! Curious Toys is still receiving reviews and making best-of lists well into this new year, so here’s a round-up:

First up, Curious Toys made the 2020 Locus Poll and Survey for Best Horror Novel.

CrimeReads included Curious Toys on their Best Books of 2019: Historical Fiction:

From an author who has achieved acclaim for stories of crime, horror, and fantasy, comes a new tale of intrigue and murder that checks off many of my favorite boxes. It’s got: lady detectives, old seaside amusement parks, the Gilded Age, silent film, women who disguise as men to embed in male-only groups, women who look out for other women, obscure real-life artist and writer Henry Darger.

And the Curious Toys audiobook, narrated by Carol Monda, made Slate’s Best Audiobooks of 2019:

Monda, my preferred narrator for any story with a noirish flavor (including Hand’s fabulous Cass Neary series), at first seemed an incongruous fit with the historical setting, but the world Henry and Pin inhabit is a hard-knock one, and within a few chapters it was impossible to imagine this story read by anyone else.

More reviews

Portland Press Herald: In a 1915 Chicago amusement park, a teenage girl makes a terrifying discovery:

Amusement parks are generally rich settings for murder and mayhem. Think Stephen King’s“Joyland” or “Slayground” by Donald Westlake, writing as Richard Stark. Places like Riverview both attract and repel us, offering a bit of sleaze gussied up with some cheap effects. Hand gets the details exactly right, finding the tawdry magic that animates such venues, but striking a balance between her research and the narrative momentum of the novel.

Los Angeles Review of Books: Dark Ride—On Elizabeth Hand’s “Curious Toys”:

The novel’s overarching ambiance of terror is never sacrificed during its more idiosyncratic historical detours. “Dark ride” doesn’t just describe the lurid indoor amusements contained in Hell Gate — it’s an apt summary of Curious Toys and all its shadowy diversions. These crop up in herky-jerky rhythms, lurching out at the reader like midway barkers or costumed nightmares stalking a haunted house.

BookBrowse reviews Curious Toys: "Relevant for modern times"

BookBrowse gives Curious Toys a 4-star review:

With a spunky heroine, her odd but earnest partner, and a dazzling yet dark setting, Hand has created a page-turning tale that perfectly balances fiction with the true history of Riverview. Additionally, the inclusion of themes such as gender identity and the objectification of young girls make Curious Toys a story that is relevant for modern times while still maintaining the feel of early 20th century Chicago.

Subscribers can read the entire review at BookBrowse. (Beware spoilers!)

Fire included in charity anthology Horror for RAICES

Liz’s novella “Fire (Fables of the Reconstruction)” is included in a charity anthology called Horror for RAICES, edited by Jennifer Wilson and Robert S. Wilson of Nightscape Press.

RAICES is an organization dedicated to fighting for immigrant and refugee rights in the United States.

All net proceeds from the books will go to RAICES. For more information, including the complete Table of Contents, visit the official Horror for RAICES GoFundMe page.

Podcast Alert: Liz Talks The Third Man on Novel Suspects & The Inside Flap Recs Waking the Moon

Mulholland Books (publisher of Curious Toys) executive editor Joshua Kendall chats with Liz about the 1949 British film noir The Third Man on the Novel Suspects podcast. Listen to the episode.

And The Inside Flap’s Laura picked Waking the Moon as her recommended book of the week in episode 48. You can hear the episode over on The Inside Flap.