Forget because everyone does, and no one is supposed to be thinking about any of that.ĭaphne is a novel that reminds me of a trick Peter Straub plays on readers. Forget about the muscle car and the graffiti. Nothing but the smoke and mirrors of the ‘real world’ holding them back.įorget about the seven foot specter with ham hands and heavy metal patches. Anyone can stop what they are doing at any time, and do whatever they want with their life, because it’s nothing but a string of choices, bouts of weakness and willpower… a thing with no stability at all. It’s in the things Josh Malerman is teaching you without letting on. The most frightening thing about this book is not that there is a monster, or that young girls are in danger. The focus is inward, fears and dreams, tricks and promises.

But the stories of the girls in danger pass like kaleidoscope images. Mixing a nostalgic coming-of-age story and an instantly iconic female villain with an innovative new vision of classic horror, this is an unforgettable thriller as only Josh Malerman could imagine it.Basektball, Birdbox, Josh Malerman, slashersĭaphne is a very intense, very personal novel wrapped in the the trappings of a slasher story that it wears more like a cloak than a full garment. Or else the summer of her lifetime will become the last summer of her life. Now it’s a race against time as Kit searches for the truth behind the legend and learns to face her own fears. They also say that Daphne is still out there, obsessed with revenge, and will appear anytime someone thinks about her to kill again.Īfter Kit hears the story, her teammates vanish, one by one, and Kit begins to suspect that the stories about Daphne are real…and to fear that her own mind is conjuring the killer. And some say that Daphne is a murderer herself.

Some say she was murdered, others that she died by her own hand. The last summer before her life begins.īut the night before the big game, one of Kit’s players tells a ghost story about Daphne, a girl who went to their school many years ago and died under mysterious circumstances. The last summer with her high school basketball team, and with Dana, her best friend.

It’s the last summer for Kit Lamb: the last summer before college.

A brutal, enigmatic woman stalks a girls high school basketball team in a reimagining of the slasher genre by the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box.

Daphne malerman