Author Dani Lamia (Scavenger Hunt 2020) and debut author Gwendolyn Kress deliver The Raven (Feb 2023), an Edgar Allan Poe inspired supernatural horror about the cost of revenge. Rebekah dreams of a figure named the Raven exacting revenge on her bullies. At first, she relishes the power, but then Rebekah discovers the brutal revenge is real. Like Poe, The Raven explores the underlying darkness of our everyday lives.
As a fan of horror and the human psyche, Dani Lamia is drawn to adapting Poe’s tales of terror, love, and death. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most adapted and inspiring authors to date. In 2022 alone, at least three films were associated with Poe, including The Pale Blue Eyes starring Christian Bale and Harry Melling as a young Edgar Allan Poe.
The 1935 film adaptation of Poe’s poem, The Raven—starring the iconic Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi—largely influenced Lamia’s early love of late-night shock horror. This era of horror delivered a creepy yet thrilling mood that Lamia continues to weave into stories like The Raven. Another truly scary inspiration for The Raven was A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), specifically the terrifying concept of reality silently slipping into a nightmare. Blended with Poe’s themes, this concept brewed Lamia’s perfect recipe for horror—mystery, revenge, regret, and nightmares.
In The Raven, no matter how hard she tries, Rebekah just doesn’t fit in at her prestigious Ivy League prep school. The cruel, privileged students ridicule and bully her daily. And instead of standing up for herself, Rebekah retreats into a dark, unsettling world of nightmarish visions . . .
In her dreams, a cloaked figure named The Raven gives her a chance to turn the tables on her tormentors, and exact bloody revenge. At first, she secretly relishes the power, but then Rebekah discovers her dreams have terrifying consequences: The Raven’s brutal revenge is real.
Ripped straight from the pages of Edgar Allan Poe, Dani Lamia’s The Raven unlocks deep truths about humanity and tackles self-worth, morality, and the pain of doing what’s right at all costs.
