I’m thrilled to announce the acquisition of The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht, a twisted, thrilling, fun-packed fantasia of mad violence, sick revenge, and dark chemistry. The Monster of Elendhaven is a dark fantasy, a twisted tale of revenge set in an original world as oily and real as Jack the Ripper’s London. After a thing with no name washes up on the docks, empty, alone, and unable to die, he becomes obsessed with a frail young man who can twist minds with magic. Together, they launch a plan so dark and cruel that readers will find themselves cheering for blood, and for these avengers to consummate their horrible passion for each other. But the pair are being hunted by officials from the south, intent on saving the world from the horrors mages can unleash.
This novella gripped me from the first word, and the cruel, sexy energy drew me under like a riptide. The Monster of Elendhaven was acquired through the Tor.com Publishing unsolicited submission process, and it is always a delight to discover an author as talented as Jennifer through the slush pile.
Jennifer Giesbrecht is a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia where she earned an undergraduate degree in History, spent her formative years a professional street performer, and developed a deep and reverent respect for the ocean. In 2013 she attended the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop. She currently works for Homestuck, and also as a freelance fiction and manga editor.Her work has appeared in Nightmare Magazine, XIII: ‘Stories of Resurrection’, Apex, and Imaginarium: The Best of Canadian Speculative Fiction. She lives in a quaint, historic neighbourhood with two of her best friends and five cats. The Monster of Elendhaven is her first book. She had this to say about the sale:
The Monster of Elendhaven is a story that I thought I would never finish: too obscene, too cynical, too many paragraphs wasted on describing how horrible coastal weather patterns are. But over the past three years I kept periodically clicking the file open to pour sentences into it, like salt into a wound. Cathartic strings of words about fragility and violence and the way voyeuristic nihilism can cast dark clouds that swallow societies whole. Oh, and even more weather. I’m beyond thrilled to be working Carl Engle-Laird, whose recent projects have been without peer. I’m unspeakably grateful that he and Tor.com are giving me a chance to share my nasty, little tragicomedy about revenge, obsession and luxuriously described corpses with the world.
The Monster of Elendhaven is scheduled for publication in late 2019.
