The traveling carnival is coming to Evansburg. Now it’s Coco, Brian, and Phil’s turn to make theirs. Game on! The smiling man has finally made his move. How the man agreed to let him go on one condition: that he deliver a message. He tells anyone who’ll listen about the mysterious man who took him. A boy who went missing at a nearby traveling carnival appears at the town swimming hole, terrified and rambling. The smiling man promised Coco, Brian and Phil, that they’d have a chance to save her, but as time goes by, they begin to worry that the smiling man has lied to them and Ollie is gone forever. It’s been three months since Ollie made a daring deal with the smiling man to save those she loved, and then vanished without a trace. New York Times bestselling author Katherine Arden thrills once again in the finale to the critically acclaimed, spook-tacular quartet that began with Small Spaces. Small Spaces was also the winner of Vermont’s Golden Dome Award and Kansas’ William Allen White Award. R.L Stine called Arden’s middle grade debut, Small Spaces, “terrifying and fun.” It was named a best book of 2018 by Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, and the Chicago Public Library system, as well as being nominated for student book awards in over twenty states.

The Winternight Trilogy was also nominated for a Hugo for Best Series.

It was a finalist for both best debut and best fantasy at the Goodreads Choice awards. The Bear and the Nightingale was named the best science fiction and fantasy novel of 2017 by Amazon, and nominated for an Astounding award, a Locus award, a Vermont Book Award. She currently lives in Vermont with her husband and her dog, where she grows a gigantic garden, hikes and skis. Arden’s work has been translated into over twenty languages, and all her work has been optioned for film.īorn in Austin, Texas, she has studied Russian in Moscow, taught at a school in the French Alps, and worked on a farm in Hawaii. She is also the author of the Small Spaces Quartet, a middle grade horror series, whose titles include Small Spaces, Dead Voices, Dark Waters and Empty Smiles. Katherine Arden is the author of the New York Times, USA Today and internationally bestselling Winternight Trilogy: The Bear and the Nightingale, The Girl in the Tower, and The Winter of the Witch, three historical fantasy novels set in medieval Russia.

Katherine arden empty smiles