Summer Of The Cicadas

“A fast-paced, stirring narrative about loss and unrequited love” set amid a destructive cicada swarm in West Virginia (Publishers Weekly). In a West Virginian town, a brood of Magicicadas emerges for the first time in seventeen years. The cicadas damage crops and trees, and swarm locals. Jessica, a former cop whose entire family was killed in a car crash two years earlier, is deputized during the crisis. At the same time, she is dealing with her feelings for her sister’s best friend, Natasha, a town council member—and the two-year anniversary of the car crash that killed her family is approaching. As all this descends, a sudden, devastating loss will change everything . . . “A bright, raw, original new voice in American fiction. Her prose is electric. And Summer of the Cicadas was a novel I couldn't put down.” —Thomas Christopher Greene, author of The Perfect Liar

Novel by Cole Lavalais, Inaugural Fellow, Kimbilio Center for Fiction.

It's 1987 and Joseph Pullman and his parents have just moved to Maritime, Maryland. This is white-picket-fence America, but for fifteen-year-old Joseph the threat of violence at home is as unrelenting as the punishment he receives at school, and his mother is slowly slipping away from reality. Joseph forms an uneasy friendship with the awkward Dean Gillespie and the boys occupy themselves burying animal corpses at the Killing Tree. This is the summer the cicadas are due to come out of their seventeen-year hibernation and Joseph becomes convinced that their arrival will bring his salvation. Meanwhile, Mother is gone and Joseph's father has retreated to his basement workshop. When a local boy goes missing and is finally found unconscious in the woods, Maritime is shaken. Then a second boy disappears and the residents of the town are forced to confront the secrets of the Pullmans' house.

NOMINATED FOR A BRAM STOKER AWARD FOR SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL 2018 - Belinda Alvarez has returned to Texas for the wedding of her best friend Veronica. The farm is the site of the urban legend, La Reina de Las Chicharras - The Queen of The Cicadas. In 1950s south Texas a farmworker- Milagros from San Luis Potosi, Mexico, is murdered. Her death is ignored by the town, but not the Aztec goddess of death, Mictecacíhuatl. The goddess hears the dying cries of Milagros and creates a plan for both to be physically reborn by feeding on vengeance and worship. Belinda and the new owner of the farmhouse - Hector, find themselves immersed in the legend and realize it is part of their fate as well. FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.

Eloise doesn't speak, but can she see into the past? This exciting and atmospheric mystery from the author of the Chanters of Tremaris series explores themes of family, friendship, and grief. Something flickered at the top of the stairs. Eloise heard a voice call,I'm coming!, and a girl in a pale dress and a big sunhat came running, her fingertips slipping down the curve of the slim iron railing. Eloise went cold all over. She couldn't move, or breathe; her mouth was dry. At the bottom of the steps, the girl in the pale dress faltered, then stopped. For a fraction of a second she stood motionless, as if she were listening. Then all at once she turned and stared straight at Eloise. And suddenly the foyer was empty. The ghostly girl was gone. When Eloise's get-rich-quick dad moves them back to his home town to turn the derelict family mansion into a convention center, Eloise feels an immediate bond with the old house. She begins spending all her time there, ignoring her strange grandmother and avoiding the friendly boy next door. Then Eloise meets a "ghost girl" who may or may not be from the house's past, and events take a strange—and ultimately dangerous—turn. Beautifully written, poignant, and gripping, this is a charming and atmospheric story of personal growth, overcoming grief, and the true nature of friendship and family.

Our special edition of the classic, Cecily Cicada, created for the Midwest's double-brood emergence of 2024.

A moving novel of unconditional love and the freedom of letting go, this story follows the haunting journey of a single mother from South Carolina who discovers she's pregnant again. When single mother Priscilla Lynn Macy learns she's having another child unexpectedly, she packs the family into the car to escape. Eight-year-old Janie Doe and Rainey Dae, her seventeen-year-old sister with special needs, embark on the last family vacation they'll ever take with Poppy and Grandma Mona in the back seat. The trip seems aimless until Janie realizes they are searching for the father who left them years ago. When they can't find him, they make their way to Forest Pines, SC. Priscilla hasn't been to her family home in many years and finds it a mixed blessing of hope, buried secrets, and family ghosts. Through eyes of innocence, Janie learns the hard realities of life and the difficult choices grownups make. And she must face disturbing truths about the people she loves in order to carry them in the moments that matter most. Part road trip, part mystery, and completely unexpected, Saving Cicadas picks you up in one place and puts you down someplace else entirely. It's an eloquent reminder that life is a miracle—and even the smallest soul is a gift. Haunting contemporary southern fiction Includes discussion questions for book clubs Also by Nicole Seitz: The Inheritance of Beauty, A Hundred Years of Happiness, and Trouble the Water

WHEN AN ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD, WHISKY DRINKING, PIANO PRODIGY ENCOUNTERS A WEALTHY FAMILY POSSESSING SUPERNATURAL BEAUTY, HER ENSUING OBSESSION UNLEASHES FAMILY SECRETS AND A CATACLYSMIC PLAGUE OF CICADAS. The summer of 1956, a brood of cicadas descends upon Providence, Georgia, a natural event with supernatural repercussions, unhinging the life of Analeise Newell, an eleven-year-old piano prodigy. Amidst this emergence, dark obsessions are stirred, uncanny gifts provoked, and secrets unearthed. During a visit to Mistletoe, a plantation owned by the wealthy Mayfield family, Analeise encounters Cordelia Mayfield and her daughter Marlissa, both of whom possess an otherworldly beauty, a lineal trait regarded as that Mayfield Shine. A whisper and an act of violence perpetrated during this visit by Mrs. Mayfield all converge to kindle Analeise's fascination with the Mayfields. Analeise's burgeoning obsession with the Mayfield family overshadows her own seemingly, ordinary life, culminating in dangerous games and manipulation, setting off a chain of cataclysmic events with life-altering consequences-all of it unfolding to the maddening whir of a cicada song. When an eleven year old, whisky drinking, piano prodigy encounters a wealthy family possessing supernatural beauty, her ensuing obsession unleashes family secrets and a cataclysmic plague of cicadas. "Following in the magnificent footsteps of Carson McCullers and Harper Lee, Robert Gwaltney creates a wonderful snapshot of the friendship that forms between Analeise and Etta Mae, two eleven-year-old girls in '50s small town Georgia... This is a book to love and remember, and every book club in America would be wise to snap it up."- Robert Goolrick, #1 New York Times bestselling author  "The gothic beauty of a relentless Georgia summer is brought to life through Gwaltney's deliberate details and exquisite imagery, while all the while evil lurks beneath the surface; from where or what the reader does not know but is as convinced by Gwaltney's expert storytelling as he is."-Zoe Fishman, bestselling author of Invisible Air and Georgia Author of the Year 2020 "Gwaltney's Southern Gothic, THE CICADA TREE mesmerizes and seduces, the language redolent and deadly, the characters steeped in secrets and madness, and the whole of it an enthralling and perfect read. Easily my favorite book of the year."-Kim Taylor Blakemore, bestselling author of After Alice Fell

WINNER OF THE CBCA PICTURE BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2019 Cicada work in tall building. Data entry clerk. Seventeen year. No sick day. No mistake. Tok Tok Tok! Cicada works in an office, dutifully toiling day after day for unappreciative bosses and being bullied by his coworkers. But one day, cicada goes to the roof of the building, and something truly extraordinary happens ... A story for anyone who has ever felt unappreciated, overlooked or overworked, from Australia's most acclaimed picture book creator.

"The cicadas arrive, singing their songs and intimidating people. In the next few days, tragedy and terror overwhelms the community as horrible murders occur in the countryside. Sheriff Milburn tries to deal with the dilemma as the creatures emerge from the earth killing every living thing"--Page 4 of cover.