An Evening with Leslie Lutz and Dana Swift

***Please note: This event will take place at the Books & Books in Coral Gables at 265 Aragon Ave. Tickets are FREE and books will be available for purchase at the event. Want your copy early or can't make it in-person?

A teenage psychic is drawn deep into the honeycomb of an abandoned hotel—and into a cat-and-mouse game with a predatory entity—in this riveting new supernatural horror novel.
"SO SCARY, IT GIVES DARKNESS A BAD NAME! When I finished the last page, I realized I was still shivering."—R.L. STINE, author of Goosebumps and Fear Street
Everyone in Gypsum, Texas knows the Hotel Alvarado changes at night—especially Quinn. A teenage clairvoyant, he’s been having dreams about it… dreams that call him to its dark, abandoned halls. The hotel is a monument to the town’s more prosperous past, when celebrities flocked to the mineral spas and films were shot in the desert. The Great Depression killed all of that, it killed the Alvarado, and frankly it killed Gypsum, too. Now, when the sun goes down, things no longer living stir deep within its creaking depths.
But the dreams are relentless. When Quinn braves the hotel’s darkness with his best friend June and unrequited love Selena, looking for answers, he gets only one: ghosts aren’t the scariest thing lurking inside the Alvarado (although they’re there, cold and restless and angry).
No. He’s been called by something worse: a predatory, inhuman entity that threatens to wipe Gypsum off the map, along with everyone in it. And wrongly—accidentally—he’s let it out. It takes the shape of a handsome young man. It walks. It talks. It laughs. It can even make you laugh. But its appetite for death can never be sated. Quinn has always had the power to see the future… can he find the power to change it?

Leslie Lutz loves writing about haunted water. If it’s got a tentacle, or a water ghost, or a near-drowning, she’s probably going to write about it. She is the author of Fractured Tide, which won the Frisco First Chapter Contest, and has written short fiction and poetry published in several journals, including Orca Literary Journal, Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal, Typishly, The Lyric, and Raintown Review. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas, and when she’s not writing, you can find her watching B-horror movies, scuba diving, or taking care of chickens.

Dana Swift started making up fantasy worlds when she was eleven years old and hasn’t stopped since. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned degrees in English and Advertising. Dana currently lives in Miami, Florida where she works as the children’s book buyer for Books & Books, the beloved local indie bookstore. Her debut, CAST IN FIRELIGHT and its sequel, BOUND BY FIRELIGHT, were published with Delacorte Press. Her next YA Fantasy, WHEN DEALING WITH DRAGONS will hit shelves Summer 2026. You can learn more about Dana at www.danaswiftbooks.com.

Host or Publisher Books & Books