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Scorpion Deep
by C. G. Drews
Our take
Cosmic horror about wanting to be truly seen, even by something that shouldn't exist, more than a straightforward monster story. A gay teen faces being left behind on his island as friends head off to college. In desperation, he makes a bargain with a forgotten sea god, and the god falls for him back, hard and violently. Horror built around a gay protagonist's specific dread of being abandoned, rather than generic scares, is a distinctive angle for YA. Published in 2026, it arrives as YA horror keeps finding new ways to make queer longing feel dangerous.
Publisher's description
The only thing Jonathan Covey wants from the gloomy, moldering isle of Kelcarrow is to leave it. Summer is ending, and his friends are looking forward to college on the mainland, unaware that Jonathan was not accepted to join them. He'll be left behind with nothing but the ocean's haunts and a rising dread of being abandoned.
In an act of wild desperation, Jonathan pays a tithe to Scorpion Deep, an eldritch sea god who many of the locals have dismissed as myth. He wants to forget the past, he wants to follow his friends, and most of all he wants to finally escape.
To his shock and horror, the ritual works—Scorpion Deep awakens. And despite his terror, Jonathan can't help but feel drawn toward the ageless entity that seems just as mutually obsessed with him. As scales start growing down his spine and Scorpion Deep's adoration of him turns bloody, Jonathan realizes the only way to end the nightmare is to destroy the monster one way or another.
But once a god has awoken, the only way to be free is to pay a price of blood.
- Publisher
- Hachette Children's Group
- First published
- 2026
Available formats
- Print — 352 pages · ISBN 9781444983999
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