The Sleeping Sisters

A threatened mother and relentless detective collide in this mesmerizing novel from a rising voice in literary horror, perfect for fans of Gabino Iglesias, Carmen Maria Machado, Augustina Bazterrica, and Stephen Graham Jones.

“House of Spirits meets The Wire in this marvelously strange story of murder and motherhood; a gloriously surreal novel in which magical realism meets police procedural. Jenn Givhan twists your brain and leaves you looking at the world differently for a long time afterward. I have no idea how to describe what I just read, but it was really, really cool.” —T. Kingfisher, author of What Moves the Dead
 
A mother’s love is the oldest curse
 
Fortuna Miércoles has finally moved her family to a better neighborhood across the Rio Grande, desperate to outrun the curse that’s stalked her bloodline since her greatest grandmother crossed the desert with a cactus thorn splitting her throat. But burying a family’s violent legacy isn’t so easy. Twenty years ago, girls and women vanished into the Albuquerque night, their bones later unearthed on the mesa. The so-called Reaper was never caught. Now, beneath the dormant volcanoes called the Sleeping Sisters, the killings have begun again.
 
Detective Jeanette Palacio has spent decades chasing the ghosts of her murdered cousins—alongside the memory of the other women she couldn’t avenge. When a new body turns up in Fortuna’s backyard, both women are pulled into a dangerous, ancient plot. Are the Sleeping Sisters awakening—or has someone in Fortuna’s family set a trap?
 
Inspired by true events and shot through with a Chicana-Indigenous reimagining of the legend of the headless woman, The Sleeping Sisters is a fevered, feral hymn to motherhood and the monstrous bargains we make to protect those we love.

• “House of Spirits meets The Wire in this marvelously strange story of murder and motherhood; a gloriously surreal novel in which magical realism meets police procedural. Jenn Givhan twists your brain and leaves you looking at the world differently for a long time afterward. I have no idea how to describe what I just read, but it was really, really cool.”
  T. Kingfisher, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of What Moves the Dead
• “Jennifer Givhan’s The Sleeping Sisters is as brutal as it is beautiful. When teenage girls are found decapitated in Albuquerque, one mother begins to fear the violence haunting her community may be rooted in her own bloodline. What unfolds is part crime novel, part fever dream, part reckoning with inherited trauma and religious hypocrisy. Givhan writes with a raw, lyrical intensity most writers spend a lifetime trying to unlock, turning myth and memory into something sharp, unsettling, and, at times, devastating. This is a bold, haunting novel about generational violence and the women who refuse to stay buried."  
  Carter Wilson, USA Today bestselling author of Tell Me What You Did
• "The sun-drenched brutality of Jennifer Givhan's The Sleeping Sisters burns right through its readers' retinas, blinding in its savage humanity and voracious heartache. This haunting elegy to twice told tales—and our mothers who tell them—is absolutely volcanic, ready to erupt on your bookshelf if you don't read it straight away."
  Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
• "A chilling exploration of motherhood, murder, grief, and deep secrets, this book further solidifies Jennifer Givhan's place amongst contemporary literary greats. Simply put: The Sleeping Sisters is a masterpiece of Southwestern Gothic fiction."
  Pedro Iniguez, author of Fever Dreams of a Parasite
• “Jennifer Givhan brings a poet's ear for language to a propulsive mystery-thriller, and the combination is remarkable. In The Sleeping Sisters, she fuses lyrical horror with genuine narrative drive, delivering unexpected twists while maintaining control of her prose. Drawing on the unresolved West Mesa murders and the myth of the headless woman, the novel is grounded in Albuquerque with intelligence, specificity, and deep respect for place. A brilliant book by a writer who understands both language and plot.”
  Alisa Valdes, author of Hollow Beasts
• Praise for Salt Bones
• "A triumph. One of the most masterful marriages of horror, mystery, thriller, and literary writing." 
  The Los Angeles Times
• “A mystery spiked with horror, magical realism, and stunning prose, this book cast a spell on me.” 
   
  Ana Reyes, author of The House in the Pines
• “Givhan mesmerizes. . . . Weaving folklore, mystery, and horror into a breathtaking tapestry. It’s a stunning examination of generational trauma.”
  Publishers Weekly (starred review)
• “Givhan perfectly balances the supernatural with human themes of grief and love. A timely novel that deals with the treatment of Latina women. For fans of character-driven suspense and the magical realism of Isabel Allende, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Victor LaValle.”
  Library Journal (starred review)
• “Jennifer Givhan’s lyricism and rich storytelling immediately snatch you into this irresistible world of secrets, grief, and horror.”
  Tananarive Due, author of The Reformatory