Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Campfire
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
| LC control no.: | n 2018000940 |
|---|---|
| LCCN Permalink: | https://lccn.loc.gov/n2018000940 |
| HEADING: | Sarles, Shawn |
| 000 | 00287nz a2200109n 450 |
| 001 | 10643029 |
| 005 | 20180105150159.0 |
| 008 | 180105n| azannaabn |n aaa |
| 010 | __ |a n 2018000940 |
| 040 | __ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC |e rda |
| 100 | 1_ |a Sarles, Shawn |
| 670 | __ |a Campfire, 2018: |b ECIP title page (Shawn Sarles) |
PERSONAL
Born in KY.
EDUCATION:Graduate of Wake Forest University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and novelist. Works in the publishing industry, beginning c. 2008, including for the James Patterson’s brand team at Hachette Book Group, New York, NY, sales analyst.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Shawn Sarles grew up in a small town in Kentucky. After graduating from college he moved to New York City, where he works in the publishing industry. Sales was an aspiring writer writing on the side during his nine-to-five job. A completed manuscript had been rejected by numerous publishers. Then the publisher he worked for asked him if he wanted to submit a short 30,000-word partial draft of a a novel that would be a horror story and a thriller. “I grew up loving slasher films, so I knew this was the perfect project for me,” Sarles told Melissa Albert for the B&N Teen Blog associated with Barnes & Noble. The effort led to his debut novel.
Campfire, is a young-adult horror story where a tale told around a campfire comes true. “The inspiration for Campfire came from a place of nostalgia,” Sarles noted in an interview for the YA Books Central website. He went on in the interview to note his obsession with “all things scary” while growing up in the nineties watching “everything from slasher flicks to creature features,” adding: “Campfire came from my desire to merge these two genres of horror – take some scary stories and set them in a world where you have this unknown killer stalking around in the dark and see who survives.”
Maddie Davenport, who is sixteen years old, lost her mother in an explosion at her mother’s real estate office. Her death was ruled an accident. As a result of her mother’s death, Maddie matured far beyond her years. Five years later, Maddie, along with her father and older brother, who is about to leave for college, get together with friends of all three family members for a camping trip in a remote area far from their comfortable suburban homes. Among those attending is the family of her mother’s former partner in real estate. Also there is a young, attractive wilderness guide named Caleb.
Maddie’s friends often refer to as “Saint Maddie” because she always seems to be so good and mature. Maddie’s best friend, Chelsea Park, is also on the trip and through constant urgings convinces Maddie to pursue Caleb. Around the campfire one night, the group begins to tell scary stories. Caleb tells about a local legend concerning Mountain Men who attack campers. The unsuspecting campers are left dead with grisly antlers carved into their foreheads. The stories have an impact on Maddie, especially the one about the Mountain Men, causing her to have nightmares. Meanwhile, there are issues between two teens who have a relationship. In addition, someone brought marijuana with them and the younger members of the group have been drinking.
The next day, it seems that the horrors related by Caleb are starting to come true as members of the group begin to be murdered. Lost deep in the woods and being hunted down by an unknown killer or killers, Maddie and her family have no way out. Meanwhile, the deaths seem to be mimicking the way horrible deaths occurred in the campfire stories. Before long, secrets by various members of the group come to light as suspicions arise and tensions grow. The seemingly staid suburban group soon reveals that members are involved in affairs and blackmail, as well as facing bankruptcy. This gets Maddie and others to thinking that perhaps they are being murdered not by a legend come to life but by someone in their own group. Meanwhile, it may be that the death of Maddie’s mother was no accident at all.
The novel has “a fast pace with toxic family drama and graphic murders alike, with effective use of red herrings,” wrote Krista Hutley in Booklist. Sherrie Williams, writing for Voice of Youth Advocates, remarked: “This debut novel may be formulaic at times, but its treatment of the traditional horror tropes gives it a nostalgic sense.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 15, 2018, Krista Hutley, review of Campfire, p. 50.
Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2018, review of Campfire.
Publishers Weekly, May 28, 2018, review of Campfire, p. 102.
Voice of Youth Advocates, August, 2018, Sherrie Williams, review of Campfire, p. 74.
ONLINE
B&N Teen Blog, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/teen/ (July 17, 2018), Melissa Albert, “The Campfire Author Shawn Sarels on How His Debut Came to Be.”
NJ.com, https://www.nj.com/ (August 1, 2018), “Jersey City Novelist Lights a Spark around the Campfire
Teenreads, https://www.teenreads.com/ (July 16, 2018), review of Campfire.
YA Books Central, http://www.yabookscentral.com/ July 24, 2018), “Author Chat with Shawn Sarles (Campfire), Plus Giveaway!”
About Shawn Sarles
Shawn Sarles was born and raised in a small town in western Kentucky. After graduating from Wake Forest University, he moved to New York City. He has lived there and worked in the publishing industry for almost a decade. Campfire is his debut novel.
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CHILLS AND THRILLS
The Campfire Author Shawn Sarles on How His Debut Came to Be
by Melissa Albert/ July 17, 2018 at 2:00 pm Share
In Campfire, out today from Shawn Sarles, teen girl Maddie spends a night sitting around a campfire with friends and family, swapping various spooky stories while winding down from a day of hiking. The creepiest tale? The one told by trail guide, Caleb, about the murderous Mountain Men, who target lost campers for violent ends.
Then, that dark tale comes true. And the worst part is, it wasn’t the only bloody story told that night.
Author Sarles stopped by the Teen Blog to talk about the experience of working with the legendary James Patterson on what would become his debut novel…
Campfire
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Most days, I still don’t feel like an author. Something this awesome couldn’t possibly have happened to me. But then, there it is. My name on a finished book. How in the world did this happen? Well, flashback to 2016 with me and I’ll tell you. It’s a nontraditional publishing story if I’ve ever heard one.
Two years ago, I was an aspiring author like so many others, working my 9 to 5 job while writing on the side. I had finished one manuscript, gotten about twenty-five agent rejections for it, and was halfway through a first draft of something new. That’s when the opportunity of a lifetime came knocking on my cubicle wall.
You see, my full-time job was in publishing. I was a sales analyst for James Patterson’s brand team at Hachette Book Group, and the opportunity that came knocking was in the form of an audition.
They wanted something short, only about 30K words. And they wanted it to be scary. Something that would have horror themes but also read as a thriller. I grew up loving slasher films, so I knew this was the perfect project for me.
I set aside my half-finished manuscript and got to work on the audition. I had to submit a detailed outline of the whole book and two sample chapters. Then it all had to get the approval of James Patterson himself.
Talk about pressure.
It was a nervous couple of weeks while I waited to see if I’d impressed enough to get the job. But lucky for me, Patterson liked my outline and my chapters. He actually wanted me to extend the story and make it into a full-length novel. He passed on a few notes through the editor:
Make your main character, Maddie, a runner
Focus on pacing, on keeping the scenes tight and the chapter breaks harrowing
Make the scary stories memorable, but also believable
And then there was a phone call.
Getting to talk to a bestselling author like Patterson about writing—about my writing specifically—was an unbelievable opportunity. I felt like I took a one-on-one master class in that thirty-minute phone call. Patterson shared some of his process with me, told me about how he liked to envision each of his books as a cinematic event. The key was to start the movie projector in the reader’s mind.
When I hung up the phone, my brain was buzzing. I was ecstatic. But also scared. This rework would be intense. I’d have to basically double my word count, add in new characters, come up with new scenes, new deaths, new stakes…
It was going to be a lot of work, but I’d done it. In a strange and unexpected way, I was going to be an author.
Now, flash forward to the present with me, and Campfire is on sale. It still hasn’t quite sunk in yet, though, this whole authoring thing. But maybe someday it will.
Campfire is on sale now.
Sarles, Shawn. Campfire
Sherrie Williams
Voice of Youth Advocates.
41.3 (Aug. 2018): p74. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
Sarles, Shawn. Campfire, jimmy patterson/ Little, Brown, July 2018. 304p. $17.99. 9780-316-51506-1.
3Q * 3P * S
Five years after the death of her mother in a fiery explosion, presumed to be an accident, Maddie gathers with family and friends in a remote wood for a camping trip. Maddie and her father hope to enjoy one last trip with her older brother before he leaves for college. Along for the trip are friends of all three family members, and a handsome young wilderness guide named Caleb. As often happens at campfires, a competition develops to tell the scariest, goriest stories. Maddie begins to have nightmares inspired by the stories, and horrifyingly, Caleb's campfire story about mountain people killing campers and carving grisly antler marks into their foreheads comes true for this small group of campers. The family and friends must fight for their lives, with no idea who they can trust.
This debut novel may be formulaic at times, but its treatment of the traditional horror tropes gives it a nostalgic sense. This nostalgia will likely appeal to older teens with fond memories of their younger years spent enjoying series horror fiction such as R.L. Stine's Goosebumps. The characters often seem interchangeable or stereotypical and the plot development thin or muddied, but those concerns are minimized by near-constant action and peril, family drama, and plenty of gore, liberally spread around. This book is most appropriate for older teen readers, as the gore and peril of a family stalked by a serial killer may be too intense for younger readers.--Sherrie Williams.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Williams, Sherrie. "Sarles, Shawn. Campfire." Voice of Youth Advocates, Aug. 2018, p. 74. Book
Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A551167891/GPS?u=schlager&
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sid=GPS&xid=a7c73eec. Accessed 24 Sept. 2018. Gale Document Number: GALE|A551167891
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Sarles, Shawn: CAMPFIRE
Kirkus Reviews.
(May 15, 2018): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Sarles, Shawn CAMPFIRE Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown (Young Adult Fiction) $17.99 7, 17 ISBN: 978-0-316-51506-1
When fictional murders become the blueprints for actual killings, where is the line between imagination and reality?
Sixteen-year-old Maddie Davenport (nicknamed "Saint Maddie" by peers who see her as a goody-goody) and her best friend, Chelsea Park, hike deep into the mountains to camp with friends and family. Away from their comfortable suburban homes, Chelsea goads Maddie into chasing after the group's attractive trail guide, Caleb. Soon, the quiet wilderness brings out other thrills, such as a rocky relationship between two older teens, smuggled cannabis, and underage drinking. Each night, the group also gathers around the campfire to share spooky stories. In one, mountain men kill intruders on their land by carving antlers into the victims' foreheads. As campers are mysteriously and gruesomely murdered in ways that mimic the plots of these oral tales, readers will wonder if the group is truly alone in the mountains. Or, is there a serial killer among them? Sarles' debut focuses heavily on plot, resulting in flat characters. The embedded campfire stories are clearly delineated by chapter titles but clumsily integrated into the rest of the story. Though justified within the world of the novel, the killers' motives border on cliche. The cast assumes a white default, but Maddie has a biracial (white/Korean) cousin.
Slasher film fans will want to gather round the fire; others should hike elsewhere. (Horror. 13- adult)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Sarles, Shawn: CAMPFIRE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2018. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A538293943/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=7c687f56. Accessed 24 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A538293943
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Campfire
Krista Hutley
Booklist.
114.18 (May 15, 2018): p50. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Campfire.
By Shawn Sarles.
July 2018. 304p. Little, BrownUIMMY Patterson, $17.99 (9780316515061); e-book, $9.99 (9780316515078). Gr. 8-11.
In Sarles' conventional but entertaining slasher, a family trip turns bloody when a scary campfire story appears to come true. On the trip are three closely linked families and their guide, Caleb. Innocent teen Maddie, the focal character (and obvious "final girl"), plans to enjoy nature, flirt with Caleb, and gossip with her friend Chloe, but her simple pleasures are curbed by unexpected tension among the adults. Each night the group gathers for a spooky story, but it isn't until Caleb's tale of the Mountain People, who legend says torture and kill campers on this very mountain, that the murders start. Soon, everyone's secrets--affairs, blackmail, arson, bankruptcy, and more--are revealed, and it's clear someone is using this trip to punish wrongdoers, but who? Sarles keeps up a fast pace with toxic family drama and graphic murders alike, with effective use of red herrings. Characterizations are thin, but this by-the-numbers slasher will work for teens raised on Goosebumps and ready for something gorier. When they're ready for a real scare, give them Cyn Balog's Alone (2017). --Krista Hutley
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Hutley, Krista. "Campfire." Booklist, 15 May 2018, p. 50. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A541400917/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=3bbc7e7a. Accessed 24 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A541400917
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Campfire
Publishers Weekly.
265.22 (May 28, 2018): p102. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Campfire
Shawn Sarles. LB/Patterson, $17.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-316-51506-1
When 16-year-old Maddie Davenport heads into the Colorado wilderness to camp for a week with family and friends, her biggest fear is looking like a fool in front of their hunky guide, Caleb. She laughs off the scary stories that her aunt and brother tell around the campfire, until Caleb tells a truly terrifying tale about the Mountain People--a community of feral men, women, and children who prey on hunters and hikers and carve antlers into their victims' foreheads. Caleb assures Maddie that it's fiction, but the next morning, the group finds antlers emblazoned in red on the side of one of their tents. Shortly thereafter, people begin turning up dead, forcing Maddie and company to question whether the legend is real or if there's a killer in their midst. After an intriguing start, this gory teen horror novel from debut author Sarles succumbs to broadly drawn characters, manufactured drama, and improbable acts of cartoon violence. Unearned twists fuel a plot that feels hastily sketched, and a lack of stakes undercuts the action-packed, blood-soaked conclusion. Ages 15-up. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Campfire." Publishers Weekly, 28 May 2018, p. 102. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A541638906/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=e57f5eb1. Accessed 24 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A541638906
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Author Chat with Shawn Sarles (CAMPFIRE), Plus Giveaway!
Tuesday, 24 July 2018
Beth Edwards, Assistant Blog Manager
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Today we're excited to chat with Shawn Sarles, author of CAMPFIRE.
Read on for more about Shawn and his book, an interview, plus a giveaway!
Meet Shawn Sarles!
Shawn Sarles was born and raised in a small town in western Kentucky. After graduating from Wake Forest University, he moved to New York City. He has lived there and worked in the publishing industry for almost a decade. Campfire is his debut novel.
Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram
Meet CAMPFIRE!
Be careful what stories you tell around the campfire... they just might come true. Fans of Scream and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will devour this chilling horror debut.
While camping in a remote location, Maddie Davenport gathers around the fire with her friends and family to tell scary stories. Caleb, the handsome young guide, shares the local legend of the ferocious Mountain Men who hunt unsuspecting campers and leave their mark by carving grisly antlers into their victims' foreheads.
The next day, the story comes true.
Now Maddie and her family are lost in the deep woods--with no way out--being stalked by their worst nightmares. Because there were other, more horrifying stories told that night--and Maddie's about to find out just how they end...
Amazon * B & N * Indiebound
~ Author Chat ~
YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
The inspiration for Campfire came from a place of nostalgia. Growing up in the ‘90s, I was obsessed with all things scary. It was kind of a horror hey-day, if you think about it. There was Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? Blockbuster was huge. You could stroll through the horror aisle and rent everything from slasher flicks to creature features. Campfire came from my desire to merge these two genres of horror – take some scary stories and set them in a world where you have this unknown killer stalking around in the dark and see who survives.
YABC: Who is your favorite character in the book?
Chelsea. She was my main character’s best friend and a lot of fun to write. I liked that she was snippy and got to have a lot of sassy lines. But then she’s also super loyal to Maddie. A ride-or-die friend…which maybe isn’t the best thing to be in a horror book. You’ll have to read to see if she survives to the end.
YABC: Which came first, the title or the novel?
The title. It just has a nice, ominous sound to it.
YABC: What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why?
The last scene. But mostly because that meant I had finished writing a whole book! Any time I get to write “The End” I’m ecstatic.
YABC: Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you've learned as a writer from then to now?
The power of revisions. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to writing, so it takes me an eternity to crawl through that first draft. With Campfire I got to do my first true revision, and I was shocked at how easy it was to go back and fix things. Like, I could just pop in a new line and suddenly there was a new layer of depth added to the character. Or I could take a whole scene out and the story become magically tighter. I’m still a super-slow writer, but having experienced how much you can do in revisions has really helped me when I get stuck.
YABC: What do you like most about the cover of the book?
The eyes! Those creepy, fiery eyes are just hypnotizing. Especially when you see the finished books. The shine on that cover – you can’t look away. It’s like some sort of demon. I love it!
YABC: What new release book are you looking most forward to in 2018?
Black Wings Beating by Alex London. I love LGBTA+ stories. I love fantasy. And then you throw in killer birds! I’m so excited for it. It comes out in September. (I also should say that I have two parrots, so I am partial to any and all bird books.)
YABC: What was your favorite book in 2017?
I’ll give you two. One YA and one Adult.
YA: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Tayler (The sequel, Muse of Nightmares, is another of my most-anticipated books coming out this year.)
Adult: Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero (It’s Scooby-Doo and the Hardy Boys meets H.P. Lovecraft’s other-dimensional monsters. It’s so good.)
YABC: What’s up next for you?
Next up…that’s a scary question. Well, right now I’m working on a new novel. I have an outline fleshed out, and hopefully I’ll have the first draft finished soon. I don’t want to say too much, but it’s an LGBTQ+ slasher set at a college-prep summer camp with themes of catfishing and birds…I know that’s vague and doesn’t sound like it goes together, but I promise you it does.
CAMPFIRE
By: Shawn Sarles
Publisher: JIMMY Patterson
Release Date: July 17th, 2018
uly 16, 2018
More Horror in YA, Please --- Guest Post by Shawn Sarles, Author of CAMPFIRE
Comments
Posted by Catherine B
Tagged:
There aren’t that many YA horror genre books out there, this much is definitely true. But it is also true that everyone lives in a horror movie for a large chunk of their lives --- it’s called being a teenager. That awkward, weird and sometimes disturbing part of our lives that we all have to endure can be pretty terrifying. In his blog post, Shawn Sarles, author of CAMPFIRE, discusses the unexpected ways in which horror books can be relatable to this time in everyone’s lives, and how they can encourage us to face our fears and have courage.
I hate to admit it, but horror is kind of rare in YA. Which is funny to me, considering some of the core ingredients in so many great horror films are
A Crazed, Blood-Thirsty Killer
An Ensemble Cast of Teens for Said Killer to Pick Off
Am I wrong?
Let’s go through a list of some of the biggest franchise killers.
Freddy Krueger – Stalks the dreams of teenagers on Elm Street
Jason – Don’t apply to be a summer camp counselor unless you want to die
Ghostface - Kills about half of his high school classmates
Michael Myers – Obsessed with killing his teenage sister on Halloween
See. YA and horror go hand-in-hand. It’s a fact.
If you think about it, our teen years are probably some of the most frightening we go through. There’s so much that we don’t know. So much that we’re trying to figure out. So much to be fearful of. It’s a pivotal moment in every person’s life, filled with scary decisions that we have to make. It’s when we start growing up. When we choose what college we want to go to or what subject we want to study there. It’s when we put ourselves on the line to ask out our crushes, the fear of rejection palpable, the embarrassment of failure almost unbearable.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is that being a teenager is really freakin’ scary. So why not use that fear and write a horror story? That’s what I decided to do.
In CAMPFIRE, I wanted to write a story about fear. But more importantly, I wanted to write about facing that fear and overcoming it. I think it’s important to recognize that life is full of scary things. Obviously not everyone is going to be stranded in some remote mountain campsite with a mystery killer hunting after them…but that doesn’t mean we don’t all face some sort of fear in our everyday lives.
I think horror is important in YA because it acknowledges that there are scary things out there and then shows that those scary things can be faced and overcome.
For my main character, Maddie, she lives with this huge trauma from her past, when she witnessed her mother die in a fire. This event haunts her and causes her to be afraid of the world. She’s shy. She needs the help of her brother and her best friend to feel comfortable. Her life is about running and hiding. It’s the only way she knows how to survive. But is that really a way to live?
For Maddie, her story is all about finding the courage within herself to stop running and start facing her fears head-on. It’s the horrific events going on around her that force her to fight. She becomes someone who takes control of her life. Someone courageous and brave. Someone who can fight the demons lurking out there in the world.
And I think that applies to everyone. It’s so easy to shrink into ourselves because something scares us. it doesn’t have to be a knife-wielding killer. It can be something as simple as failing a test or having a difficult conversation with a friend. But I think that the more we see and read about people overcoming their fears, the more we can face what scares us in our own lives.
It’s a shame that there isn’t more horror in YA, but I hope that’s all starting to change. We could all use more stories about facing fears and finding courage
Jersey City novelist lights a spark around the 'Campfire'
Updated Aug 10; Posted Aug 10
By Jacqueline Cutler
For NJ Advance Media
Shawn Sarles, of Jersey City, has worked in publishing and has written his first novel.
"Campfire"
By Shawn Sarles
(Jimmy Patterson Books, Little Brown and Company, 304 pp, $17.99)
Many years ago a slightly sadistic editor sent me on a story where I had to camp. Granted, this was not exactly roughing it. The night unfolded in a Scout camp, 30 minutes from Manhattan.
Somehow I persuaded a dear friend, also on the newspaper staff, to be the photographer. We took turns all night holding a flashlight, startling at the slightest noise. The sounds of nature at night terrified two Bronx natives. Gunshot? Hit the floor, stay silent. Rustling leaves outside this flimsy tent? "We are going to die!" We invented scary stories, though little terrified us more than what we were experiencing.
Shawn Sarles sets his debut novel in remote woods on a mountain, where people tell stories around the campfire and some seem to come true. Three families, long intertwined, try to have a relaxing vacation. It devolves into a survivalist's nightmare. Their horrifying stories around the campfire are spooky, but none are as bone chilling as what is actually happening.
Sarles spins a good yarn, though the book could have used more polish. Sarles explains how characters know one another but doesn't delve into who some important characters are. And this sometimes feels too much like an assignment from a 101 fiction-writing class.
"Gone were the chirping crickets and cawing birds, the skittish rabbits and scurrying squirrels."
Despite this, the Jersey City resident delivers an engaging tale in this YA, one of the Jimmy Patterson Books for Young Readers. In particular, the ending is an excellent, unexpected jolt.
A young adult novel, riddled with inventive murders, takes place on a remote mountaintop.
Our heroine is Maddie, 16, who had to grow up fast, and she does seem far older than her years. The beginning tells us about her at 11, while the rest of the book unfolds five years later. Here is the moment, in the beginning, when her life first changed.
"Her mom had said she'd only be a minute, but that had been ten minutes ago. And did Maddie really expect anything less? She'd been late all eleven years of her life - for dance classes, track meets, birthday parties and even school? Why would today be any different? Why would today be the day her mom decided to put her daughter ahead of her job?"
It's no spoiler to say that her mom died in an explosive fire in her real estate office.
Admittedly, I knew pretty quickly if this was an accident or intentional and why. Now it's five years later and Maddie is with her dad, brother and best friend, Chelsea. Her mother's brother and his family, and her mother's former partner and her family are all on this camping trip.
Maddie and Chelsea are on horseback, heading toward the campsite, following their mountain guide, Caleb, a handsome man, out of their age range, though he is crush-worthy. Chelsea, a little more boy-crazed, asks Maddie to describe what he smells like. She responds: "He smelled like - like summer rain."
Caleb is the real deal, though. The hero in a Western, righteous and brave, he's a steward of the land and cares deeply for the animals, less so for the entitled rich.
"He hated playing chauffeur to the yuppies. They had no respect for the wilderness - or experience in it - with their shiny LL Bean gear that they'd clearly just taken the price tags off of. Brash and idiotic, they crashed through the woods like they owned it."
Around the campfire, different characters tell scary stories and eventually life gets very ugly. As many people are killed, often brutally, the bloodshed is considerable. Could one person be killing off all of these people? And why? Are the stories coming to life?
Since the murders are real, the walking wounded must get off the mountain, which is no easy feat. Harkening back to their first horse ride up, when Maddie's horse was spooked, our protagonist thinks back to that day not so long ago.
"Feeling empty and broken, like that horse had succeeded in stomping on her head that first day on the mountain, Maddie stared blankly ahead. She kept replaying the previous night's events, going over it and over it in her head until she started to doubt her own memories."
Those who survive find themselves tested. Just what sort of stuff are they made of? And how many must die? More than might be expected, but Sarles does devise some clever ways to perish.