Josh Winning‘s highly-anticipated new horror/mystery masterpiece, BURN THE NEGATIVE is out in three weeks! Due to be published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons on July 11th, here’s the synopsis…
Thirty years hiding from her past.
Eight deaths still unexplained.
One haunted horror film.
Nowhere left to run.
Journalist Laura Warren is mid-flight to L.A. when she learns that the streaming series she’s about to report on is a remake of a ’90s horror flick. A cursed ’90s horror flick. The one she starred in—and has been running from her whole life.
As a child star, Laura was cast as the lead in The Guesthouse. She played Tammy Manners, the little girl with the terrifying gift to tell people how the Needle Man would kill them. But her big break was her last, as eight of her cast and crew mates died in mysterious ways, and the film became infamous—a cult classic of fictional horror that somehow summoned the real thing. Hoping to move on, Laura changed her name and her accent, dyed her hair, and moved across the Atlantic Ocean.
But some scripts don’t want to stay buried.
After landing, Laura finds a yellow dress like the one she wore in the movie. Then the words “She’s here” scratched into the wall in an actor’s trailer. And then people working on the series start dying. It’s all happening again, and Laura finds herself on the run with her sister and a jaded psychic, hoping to find answers—and to stay out of the Needle Man’s lethal reach.
An homage to slasher films with a fresh take on the true price of fame, Burn the Negative is a twisty thriller best read with the lights on.
Here are just a few of the great early reviews the novel has received so far…
‘A pulpy exploration of the monsters we make and a love letter to cult-classic frights.’ — Kirkus
‘Like the classic horror cinema it gleefully riffs on, Winning’s latest [BURN THE NEGATIVE] crackles with both dread and dazzle… Winning keeps readers guessing… while throwing out crafty winks and nods to well-known horror films and their makers, and driving his tale to a cinematically spectacular finale with several surprising plot twists. Horror fans should grab the popcorn for this bloody and entertaining romp.’ — Publishers Weekly
‘A spine-tingling, rip-roaring yarn that hearkens back to the thrills and chills of the best ’80s slasher horror. Hand this to readers who liked The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix, My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones, or My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite.’ — Library Journal
‘BURN THE NEGATIVE is a creepy, twisty, compulsively readable haunted house of a book built from horror movies and our obsessive response to them. You’ll root for Laura and fear the Needle Man. Be sure to make the popcorn and dim the lights.’ — Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts
Winning’s debut novel, THE SHADOW GLASS is also available, published by Titan Books in North America and in the UK.