Rebecca Schaeffer in Conversation With Xiran Jay Zhao

Gotham meets Strange the Dreamer in City of Nightmares (Clarion), Rebecca Schaeffer’s thrilling young adult fantasy that is “so much fun and readers will stay up all night to finish it” (Kirkus, starred review). Ever since her sister became a man-eating spider and slaughtered her way through town, 19-year-old Ness has been terrified — terrified of some other Nightmare murdering her, and terrified of ending up like her sister. Because in Newham, the city that never sleeps, dreaming means waking up as your worst fear. Whether that means becoming a Nightmare that’s monstrous only in appearance, to transforming into a twisted, unrecognizable creature that terrorizes the city, no one is safe. Ness will do anything to avoid becoming another victim, even if that means lying low among the Friends of the Restful Soul, a questionable organization that may or may not be a cult. But being a member of a maybe-cult has a price. In order to prove herself, Ness cons her way into what’s supposed to be a simple job for the organization — only for it to blow up in her face. Literally. Tangled up in the aftermath of an explosive assassination, now Ness and the only other survivor — a Nightmare boy who Ness suspects is planning to eat her — must find their way back to Newham and uncover the sinister truth behind the attack, even as the horrors of her past loom ominously near. Schaeffer will be joined in conversation by Xiran Jay Zhao, author of Iron Widow.

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