Midnight on Beacon Street

"Midnight on Beacon Street is an instant horror classic rich with honesty and heart. Verona fully immerses you in the moment, making sure you see, hear, and feel everything her characters do. Her skill is evident in how deeply real these characters feel from the first page."—J.A.W. McCarthy, Bram Stoker Award and Shirley Jackson Award nominated author of Sometimes We're Cruel and Other Stories and Sleep Alone

“A delightfully twisted, poignant shot of 90s nostalgia, Emily Ruth Verona’s Midnight on Beacon Street is a treat for anyone who’s been, or been babysat by, a scrappy teenager in a dark house at night.”—Julia Fine, author of Maddalena and the Dark and The Upstairs House

A suspenseful and entertaining debut thriller—and love letter to vintage horror movies—in which a teenager must overcome her own anxiety to protect the two children she’s babysitting when strangers come knocking at the door.

October 1993. One night. One house. One dead body.

When single mom Eleanor Mazinski goes out a for a much-needed date night, she leaves her two young children—sweet, innocent six-year-old Ben and precocious, defiant twelve-year-old Mira—in the capable hands of their sitter, Amy. The quiet seventeen-year-old is good at looking after children, despite her anxiety disorder. She also loves movies, especially horror flicks. Amy likes their predictability; it calms the panic that threatens to overwhelm her.

The evening starts out normally enough, with games, pizza, and dancing. But as darkness falls, events in this quaint suburban New Jersey house take a terrifying turn—unexpected visitors at the door, mysterious phone calls, and by midnight, little Ben is in the kitchen standing in a pool of blood, with a dead body at his feet.

In this dazzling debut novel, Emily Ruth Verona moves back and forth in time, ratcheting up suspense and tension on every page. Chock-full of nods to classic horror films of the seventies and eighties, Midnight on Beacon Street is a gripping thriller full of electrifying twists and a heartwarming tale of fear and devotion that explores our terrors and the lengths we’ll go to keep our loved ones safe.