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Named a BEST BOOK OF 2021 by the New York Times, NPR, the New York Public Library, Audible, Tor.com, Book Riot, Library Journal, and Kirkus!
Longlisted for the 2022 PEN Open Book Award
“Riveting…[A] tender, ferocious book.”—New York Times
“Beautifully fantastical.”—NPR
“Masterful.”—Chicago Tribune
One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother has been shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it.
As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend’s trail of bread crumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organization with secrets of its own. Meanwhile, more people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase, and protests erupt globally, both for and against the monsters.
At the center is a mystery no one thinks to ask: Why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark?
The world will soon find out.
BIO
Cadwell Turnbull is the award-winning author of The Lesson and No Gods, No Monsters. His short fiction has appeared in The Verge, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and several anthologies, including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 and The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019. His novel The Lesson won the 2020 Neukom Institute Literary Award in the debut category. The novel was also shortlisted for the VCU Cabell Award and longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Awards. His novel No Gods, No Monsters is the winner of a Lambda Award, and a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award. Turnbull grew up on St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.
REVIEWS
“An intricate sequence of moving, intimate character portraits… The depth and care with which Turnbull inhabits each character is riveting; despite an expansive cast spread over wide terrain, I never felt lost or confused. His attention to location detail is considered and clear: The story shifts from Massachusetts to St. Thomas to Virginia with confident ease, carried by beautiful, conversational prose that’s startlingly punctuated by reminders of who’s narrating the stories—and how…I can appreciate how thorough a grounding Turnbull has given this sprawling first act…Let yourselves sink into this tender, ferocious book like hands into piano keys, or teeth into flesh.” -- New York Times
“This harrowing and lyrical novel combines elements of urban fantasy with biting social commentary.” -- Buzzfeed
“The Lesson was a perfect debut, and this is a perfect second novel. Big and bold and ambitious, packed with everything we need right now: more heart, more monsters, more cooperative solidarity economies.” -- Sam J. Miller, Nebula Award–winning author of Blackfish City and The Blade Between
“No Gods, No Monsters is a haunting tale of the monsters that live among us, and those who despise them. Through a series of diverse, rich, and beautifully written voices, Turnbull deftly weaves together a story of supernatural beings, otherworldly entities, magic, and quantum physics, superimposed onto the social and political challenges of our mundane world. Throughout, we are forced to dwell not only our own humanity, but question who exactly are the monsters we fear? Once I started this novel I could not put it down. You won’t be able to either.” -- P. Djèlí Clark, author of Ring Shout
[H] Blackstone Publishing / September 07, 2021
1.5" H x 8.3" L x 5.9" W (1.55 lbs) 387 pages
[P] Blackstone Publishing / September 06, 2022
1.0" H x 8.8" L x 5.7" W (1.04 lbs) 384 pages