In 1989, Gary Sheldon and his friends created their own saint.
In 2018, they discover it’s become a god.
Gary thought he’d escaped Kingston, Oregon, the town where his parents died and where, one tragic summer, he and a group of outcast teens turned to the supernatural to protect themselves from a deranged drug dealer. But when his wife lands her dream job as a high school principal, he is forced to return to his hometown.
As Gary reconnects with old friends and his son thrives on the football team, the past feels like a distant memory. But unsettling encounters and mutilated animals in the woods reveal that the Deer Saint is still at work. Now Gary must look into his past to find answers: Who is making sacrifices to the Deer Saint? And what do they want with his family?
Genre: Horror
In 2018, they discover it’s become a god.
Gary thought he’d escaped Kingston, Oregon, the town where his parents died and where, one tragic summer, he and a group of outcast teens turned to the supernatural to protect themselves from a deranged drug dealer. But when his wife lands her dream job as a high school principal, he is forced to return to his hometown.
As Gary reconnects with old friends and his son thrives on the football team, the past feels like a distant memory. But unsettling encounters and mutilated animals in the woods reveal that the Deer Saint is still at work. Now Gary must look into his past to find answers: Who is making sacrifices to the Deer Saint? And what do they want with his family?
Genre: Horror
Praise for this book
"A novel of fog-shrouded towns and dark secrets, of corrupted youth and shadowy barns, and of insidious cults and rituals taking place beneath the veneer of a seemingly ordinary Oregon town, The Deer Kings is a novel by an author at the top of her game. With an evocative sense of place, flesh-and-blood characters anchored by long shadows to the sinister events of the past, and a narrative punctuated by jolts of startling horror, this compulsively readable novel has solidified Wendy Wagner's place as one of the most exciting writers in the genre." - Kealan Patrick Burke
"Not just a novel of cult fanaticism and sinister fears, but an enduring search for redemption: Wendy N. Wagner's The Deer Kings is a beautiful coming-of-age tale of friendship, sacrifice, and horror, when the monsters created from our youth prove not to vanish in older years." - Eric J Guignard
"Deer saints, darkness and the strangeness of family ties; Wagner effortlessly mixes football and folk horror in this terrifying new novel." - Angela Slatter
"In Wendy Wagner's masterful The Deer Kings, past and present are interwoven in a dark tapestry of occult mystery, small-town secrets, and mounting dread. This is a compulsively readable novel with strong characters that live and breathe on the page and a richly detailed and evocative Pacific Northwest setting. This story will sink its claws in you from the first word and won't release you until the last, and it will haunt your imagination long after you finish reading. One of the best books I've read in a long time, highly recommended!" - Tim Waggoner
"What Stephen King has done for New England, Wendy Wagner does for the Pacific Northwest. In The Deer Kings, Wagner captures the hidden magic and terror of coming of age in in her own specific, unerringly authentic voice. Exploring the unique horror of how the special and supernatural can be corrupted into the crass and everyday, The Deer Kings is a grand, gorgeous, and-at times-gory wonder." - Gordon B White
"Not just a novel of cult fanaticism and sinister fears, but an enduring search for redemption: Wendy N. Wagner's The Deer Kings is a beautiful coming-of-age tale of friendship, sacrifice, and horror, when the monsters created from our youth prove not to vanish in older years." - Eric J Guignard
"Deer saints, darkness and the strangeness of family ties; Wagner effortlessly mixes football and folk horror in this terrifying new novel." - Angela Slatter
"In Wendy Wagner's masterful The Deer Kings, past and present are interwoven in a dark tapestry of occult mystery, small-town secrets, and mounting dread. This is a compulsively readable novel with strong characters that live and breathe on the page and a richly detailed and evocative Pacific Northwest setting. This story will sink its claws in you from the first word and won't release you until the last, and it will haunt your imagination long after you finish reading. One of the best books I've read in a long time, highly recommended!" - Tim Waggoner
"What Stephen King has done for New England, Wendy Wagner does for the Pacific Northwest. In The Deer Kings, Wagner captures the hidden magic and terror of coming of age in in her own specific, unerringly authentic voice. Exploring the unique horror of how the special and supernatural can be corrupted into the crass and everyday, The Deer Kings is a grand, gorgeous, and-at times-gory wonder." - Gordon B White
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