Join us on Wednesday, September 4, at 7pm for a Q&A and book signing with local author Vincent Tirado in conversation with Diana Rodriguez Wallach. Light refreshments will be provided. A spine-chilling psychological thriller about a multiracial lesbian couple who are thrilled to move into their dream home in a gated community–– until strange things start happening and the pressure to assimilate becomes life or death.
The Other Black Girl meets Midsommar in this spine-chilling, propulsive psychological thriller from highly acclaimed author Vincent Tirado, about a multiracial lesbian couple who are thrilled to move into their dream home in a gated community–– until strange things start happening and the pressure to assimilate becomes life or death.
Akin to the social horror of Jordan Peele and Lovecraft County, We Came to Welcome You cleverly uses the uncanny to illuminate the cultish, shocking nature of systemic racism.
Sol Reyes has had a rough year. After a series of workplace incidents at her university lab culminates in a plagiarism accusation, Sol is put on probation. Dutiful visits to her homophobic father aren’t helping her mental health, and she finds her nightly glass of wine becoming more of an all-day—and all-bottle—event. Her wife, Alice Song, is far more optimistic. After all, the two finally managed to buy a house in the beautiful, gated community of Maneless Grove.
But the neighbors are a little too friendly, in Sol’s opinion. She has no interest in the pushy Homeowners Association, their bizarrely detailed contract, or their never-ending microaggressions. But Alice simply attributes their pursuit to the community motto: “Invest in a neighborly spirit,” which only serves to irritate Sol more.
Suddenly, a number of strange occurrences—doors and stairs disappearing, roots growing inside the house, a loud buzzing sound that only Sol can hear—cause Sol to wonder if her social paranoia is built on something more sinister. But Sol’s fears are dismissed as Alice embraces their new home and becomes increasingly worried about Sol’s drinking and manic behavior. When Sol finds a journal on the property from a resident that went missing a few years ago, she realizes why they were able to buy the house so easily…
Through Sol’s razor-sharp tongue and macabre sense of humor, Tirado explores the very real pressures to assimilate with one’s surroundings to “survive,” while also asking the question: Is it survival when you’re no longer your true self? Because in Maneless Grove, either you become a good neighbor—or you die.
Vincent Tirado is a nonbinary Afro-Latine Bronx native. They ventured out to Pennsylvania and Ohio to get their bachelor’s degree in biology and master’s degree in bioethics. Their debut YA novel Burn Down, Rise Up was the 2022 winner of the Pura Belpré Award and was a finalist for the 2022 Stoker Awards and 2023 Lammy Awards. Their sophomore YA novel We Don’t Swim Here was called “a chilling ghost story” by Publishers Weekly.
Diana Rodriguez Wallach is a multi-published author of young adult novels. Her most
recent, Small Town Monsters, is a YA Latinx horror novel that published in September 2021. Her next YA Latinx Horror, Hatchet Girls, comes out October 10, 2023. Bustle listed Diana as one of the “Top Nine Latinx Authors to Read for Women’s History Month.” She is the author of the Anastasia Phoenix Series, as well as YA contemporary Latina novels and a YA short-story collection. She lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband, two children, and two cats.
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