Sunny Lee is on the top of the world. She’s one third of Sweet Cadence, the hottest up-and-coming teen pop group, alongside her new BFFs, Candie and Mina.
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Gorgeous Gruesome Faces, a spine-tingling sapphic YA thriller by Linda Cheng—publishing with Roaring Brook Press on November 7th.
You’ll love them to death…
THEN:
Sunny Lee is on the top of the world. She’s one third of Sweet Cadence, the hottest up-and-coming teen pop group, alongside her new BFFs, Candie and Mina. The three are inseparable as they ride their way to the top of the charts, even as Candie and Sunny fight to resist the growing spark between them. But when a shocking scandal breaks, the group is suddenly torn apart. Then the unthinkable – Mina dies tragically right before Sunny and Candie’s eyes. And Sunny suspects the dark and otherworldly secrets she and Candie were keeping may have had something to do with it…
NOW:
For the past two years, Sunny has spent her days longing for her former life and her nights wondering just what caused Mina’s death. So when she discovers that Candie is attending a new K-pop workshop right in her hometown, Sunny has no choice but to follow her there. Candie might be chasing stardom again, but Sunny is only after one thing: answers.
At the workshop, the lines between nightmare and reality start to blur as Sunny is haunted by ghostly visions and her competitors’ bodies turn up bizarrely maimed and mutilated. To survive the twisted carnage, Sunny will have to expose the ugly truth behind the workshop’s spotlights and the sinister forces swirling around Candie. Stitched with cutting commentary on the ugly side of stardom and impossible beauty standards, Linda Cheng’s mind-bending thriller will have readers screaming and swooning for more.
I’m pushing through layers of velvet.
Inky drapery falls on me from all sides, collapsing onto my head, shoulders, arms, swallowing me into its black folds.
My body feels weightless. I don’t know where I am.
Am I dreaming?
There’s somewhere I need to be. I think.
Off in the distance, there’s rhythmic clapping and faint cheering.
“Sunny! Sunny!”
The crowd is calling for me.
Buy the Book
Gorgeous Gruesome Faces
Hands out, fingers spread, I force a path forward through the heavy fabric. Finally, I break free. I’m backstage, standing beneath massive rigs, surrounded by stacks of equipment boxes and instrument cases. Disorienting stage lights strobe overhead.
“Sunny! Sunny! Sunny! ”
The chanting is feverish. The front of the house sounds packed. For a venue this size the backstage should be bustling. But there’s no one. Where’s the crew? Where are the stagehands and techs? I step over the webs of thick electrical cables spread across the floor, wandering through a towering forest of amps and speakers.
Finally, I see people.
It’s our crew of backup dancers. They’re holding hands, heads bowed low in the middle of the preshow ritual.
“Where the hell were you?”
Candie’s voice booms in my ears, and I turn. She’s right behind me, arms crossed, her costume glimmering like she just emerged from a bath of jewels. Her expression is shrouded by the darkness, but I know she’s angry with me.
Please don’t be angry with me.
I’m in costume, too, the layered skirt-petals blooming out from the stem of my waist.
“Let’s go,” Candie says. “It’s time.”
“But—” I look up, lost. “What’s the set list? And where’s Mina? We can’t go on without her.”
“She’s up there already.” Candie turns and struts, her sleek ponytail swinging behind her, stiletto heels sharper than knives.
The backup dancers break open from their huddle and flatten into a line, a troop of dutiful soldiers ready to be deployed, a procession of shadowed faces watching me as I chase after Candie.
The black drapery behind them billows. I squint. Something is moving behind the curtains. Something large, bulging. The shape of it pushes up against the fabric, like a sea creature lurking just beneath the surface of still water.
“Candie—” I don’t know why, but my voice comes out as a whisper. “Candie, do you see that?”
A horrible, pungent stench wafts toward me, like burning plastic and charred hair. Rotting meat and open wounds. Sulfurous. My eyes water and my stomach curdles. Candie doesn’t seem to notice at all, not the smell, not the thing under the curtains crawling closer and closer. She just keeps walking forward until we reach the base of the staircase leading up to the stage. The crowd on the other side is ceaseless in their shouting.
“You ready?” Candie turns to me.
I have no idea where we are or what I’m doing, but I nod. Unpreparedness is anathema in Candie’s world. She reaches out and takes my hand. We ascend the stairs, one at a time, up up up.
I follow.
I always—
follow.
The spotlights flash like flares and we’re there, onstage, encased within the velvety innards of a gilded theater, the focal point at the center of an enormous opera house. Private viewing boxes line the chamber walls like rows of glittering teeth. Cherubs with rosy faces peer down at us from the clouds painted across the trompe l’oeil ceiling. The crowd below is ecstatic, alive, a writhing mass of raised arms and red, open mouths, hungry and pleading. For a second, the rush of pleasure from receiving all this unfiltered attention overwhelms me—Yes, that’s it, that’s the feeling, more, more—“
Look.” Candie points. “She’s about to perform.”
A spotlight drifts over the crowd, the beam climbing until it lands on—Mina. Up on the mezzanine.
The audience turns away from the stage to look back at her. Her costume matches ours, sparkling pink and creamy white, skirt puffed up with layers of tulle. She blows a kiss below, and it elicits more whistles and cheers and pledges of eternal devotion. She places a shushing finger to her lips, and the crowd instantly quiets like she pressed a mute button.
Mina bends at the waist into a deep bow. Then she starts climbing up onto the railing.
“Wait, Mina…” I take a few steps forward as icy dread begins to drip steadily down my neck.
When I reach the edge of the stage I stumble back in shock. Where the orchestra pit should be is a deep, gaping trench, separating the stage from the crowd. I peer down into the gorge and see no bottom. The stairs on either side of the stage leading down have vanished. There’s no way across.
On the other side, the masses are mesmerized, all eyes fixed on Mina. That awful smell is starting to permeate the stage. I don’t dare turn to look; I know the thing lurking behind the curtains is right there. In front of me, the yawning black canyon stretches on.
Up on the second floor, Mina balances delicately on the railing, wobbling slightly before righting herself. She raises her arms out to the sides, elegant as a swan spreading its wings in preparation for flight. She tips forward—and for a brief moment looks gently suspended in midair—before she dives off the balcony headfirst.
“Mina!”
Inside the silent theater, the loud crack of a body breaking open against a hard surface echoes endlessly. The audience rises to its feet as one, the applause drowning out my cries.
I jolt upward, gasping and choking like I’ve been held underwater.
I’m—in a dark room. In bed. For a few confused seconds, I wonder where all the posters on my bedroom wall went, until I remember where I am.
The workshop.
My hair lays in a tangled mess across my face, and I reach to push it out of my eyes. My palm comes away sticky with sweat. My whole forehead is wet, and so is the pillow. My nostrils sting from the memory of that awful stench and I gag again, doubling over as I cough.
On the other side of the room, Candie exhales softly and shifts onto her back. The silhouette of her hands resting on her chest looks like some fairy-tale princess waiting to be roused by a lover’s kiss.
A bitter impulse strikes me and I want to go over there and shove her awake, turn on all the lights and shine them directly onto all the unsightly things wiggling and festering in our past. How can she sleep so soundly when I’m forced to endure these vivid night terrors, constantly torturing myself with what-ifs about things I can’t change?
I stopped taking meds a while ago when it seemed like I wasn’t having panic attacks as often, but I’m pretty sure I stuffed some emergency sleep aids in my bag.
The dim digital haze of the workshop-issued alarm clock on the nightstand is the only light source in the dark room. As I shift to get off the bed, I see something in the corner of the room.
A hunched shadow. There’s a person there. Standing a few feet away from my bed, looking at me.
All at once I’m hyperaware of my T-shirt collar against my neck, the quick hiss of my breath as it leaves my nostrils. I want to pinch myself, slap myself, to make sure I’m fully awake, but I can’t move a single muscle.
The person is shrouded in darkness, but I can see the outline of a puffy skirt, the edges of a short bob haircut. The shadow reaches its hands up to its face and starts clawing.
The sound is awful, nails scraping, like frenzied rats trying to tear out of a trap. That horrible scratching reverberates inside the room, inside my skull.
A scream rises and lodges in my throat, forming a painful bubble, cutting off all airflow. I can’t tell anymore, can’t tell if I’m imagining things or if I’m still dreaming.
Finally, my body throws itself into motion. Like a terrified child, I yank the blankets over my head and tuck myself into a fetal ball, squeezing my eyes shut, my hands fisted tightly into the blanket, wrapping it around myself like it can somehow protect me against the horrors outside.
The fabric shifts, despite my hold. The mattress dips. The person is crawling inside my blankets. Ice-cold fingers curl around my ankle and start to pull.
I scream and thrash, yell and kick, my body spasming as I try to throw off the hand that’s gotten ahold of me. Suddenly, there’s a heavy pressure against my arms. Someone is trying to hold me still. It makes me panic more, my whole body twisting wildly.
“Sunny, Sunny! Wake up.”
My eyes open. Candie is sitting on the edge of my bed, gripping my shoulders. Her expression is solemn under the dim glow of the clock, her brow furrowed. I blink again and again. There are no ghostly shadows in the corners. Nothing under my sheets.
“It’s just a nightmare,” Candie repeats. “Just a dream.”
Tears flood my eyes.
I am in a nightmare, one I haven’t been able to escape for two years. I’m still dreaming of Mina, still seeing her staring at me from darkened corners with a face that’s not quite hers. I throw my arms around Candie’s neck and cling on to her as hard as I can, gasping into her hair over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry…”
Excerpted from Gorgeous Gruesome Faces, copyright © 2023 by Linda Cheng.
