Erewhon Books has acquired the World Rights to Tamika Thompson’s The Curse of Hester Gardens, a unique and powerful take on haunted house horror, set to publish in Spring 2026.
A mother’s last hope for her family’s future is threatened by the sins of the past as the residents of a public housing project are besieged by an epidemic of gun violence and otherworldly forces haunting their very homes in this novel of supernatural horror.
Nona McKinley raised three boys in the Hester Gardens section of Medford, Michigan, an impoverished community divided by those who follow their faith in God and those who turn to crime to survive. With her drug dealer husband behind bars and her eldest son shot to death at eighteen, Nona has devoted herself to ensuring her other children escape their brother’s fate. Her second son Marcus is on the right path. He’s a valedictorian heading to an Ivy League school. He can get out.
But then, strange things start happening to Nona and other residents: mysterious footsteps are heard when she’s alone, people have phantom encounters in the streets, unattended appliances go off at all hours. Even more concerning is the state of Nona’s living sons. Her youngest, Lance, is hanging around with a bad crowd, and Marcus becomes moody and secretive. Sometimes he even seems to act like a different person entirely.
Nona has her secrets too. Her affair with the married church pastor has been weighing on her conscience, but that’s not the only guilt haunting her. She fears that someone—or something— is seeking revenge for an act she made in a moment of weakness to protect her family. And now everyone in Hester Gardens must pay the price…
From author Tamika Thompson:
I cannot gush enough about how happy I am to be working with award-winning editor Diana M. Pho and the entire Erewhon team. Most writers I know have a list of editors and publishers they’d love to work with, and I’m no different. So, I feel like all forces in the Universe aligned to have my debut novel land with my dream editor. I have been a reader and fan of Diana’s books since before I conceived of my current project, and I feel lucky to be working with her.
Since Erewhon champions stories from a diverse group of authors and genres and does not shy away from putting forth thought-provoking titles on cutting edge topics, what better place is there to publish my supernatural tale set in a public housing project where the characters are faced with impossible choices? It takes a refined publishing house and a perceptive editor to work on a modern-day gothic with guns, but I knew from my first conversation with Diana that she understood the terrain of The Curse of Hester Gardens and knew how to make the work shine.
From editor Diana Pho:
When you think of a haunted house story, what do you imagine? Perhaps a creaky old Victorian mansion, sitting on a hill, surrounded by spooky woods and filled with ghosts? Have you ever thought about how communities can be haunted? Both by the supernatural, and, in Tamika’s novel, the tragic specter of gun violence. It’s a powerful metaphor, and a sad reality many live under today. The read is completely engrossing as I was pulled into Nona’s high hopes and increasing desperation and fear as she fights for her children, and the experiences these teens face in a post-Columbine/ post-Sandy Hook/post-Parkland/ post-Uvalde reality. I was compelled by the spell of her words, and the ending was so powerful I practically burst into tears. People need this story, and I can’t wait to have Erewhon Books show them why.
