Cover reveal! Scream meets Clueless in this YA horror from Adam Sass in which two gay teen BFFs find their friendship tested when a serial killer starts targeting their school’s Queer Club. Get ready for Your Lonely Nights Are Over, coming September 12, 2023!

Dearie and Cole are inseparable, unlikeable, and (in bad luck for them) totally unbelievable.

From the day they met, Dearie and Cole have been two against the world. But whenever something bad happens at Stone Grove High School, they get blamed. Why? They’re beautiful, flirtatious, dangerously clever queen bees, and they’re always ready to call out their fellow students. But they’ve never faced a bigger threat than surviving senior year . . . when Mr. Sandman, a famous, never-caught serial killer emerges from a long retirement—and his hunting ground is their school Queer Club.

As evidence and bodies begin piling up and suspicion points at Dearie and Cole, they will need to do whatever it takes to unmask the real killer before they and the rest of Queer Club are taken down. But they’re not getting away from the killer without a fight.

Along the way, they must confront dark truths hidden beneath the surface of their small desert community. When the world is stacked against them and every flop they know is a suspect, can Dearie and Cole stop Mr. Sandman’s rampage? Or will their lonely nights soon be over…

Scroll down to see the cover and read a sneak peek, and remember to preorder your copy here.

MR. SANDMAN

Don’t frown, don’t pout, don’t ever cry.

If he hears your lonely heart, then you’re the next to die.

From 1971 to 1975, the San Diego serial killer Mr. Sandman held the city in his grip, slaying the lovelorn and recently dumped. Any gender, any age—no one was spared. If you were crying over being stood up, if you pined over someone you couldn’t be with, if your sweetheart left you for someone new, Mr. Sandman would find out. If he set his sights on you, you were as good as dead. And if you broke someone’s heart, you might as well have swung the blade yourself.

Why did Mr. Sandman do it? Some say he couldn’t stand self-pity. Others believed he wanted people to stop being so careless with one another. “STAY TOGETHER” became the rallying cry of a city who believed they could outsmart the most elusive murderer of the twentieth century. They thought they could ascribe meaning to the mayhem.

In reality, it was a senseless, never-ending bloodbath, until one day, without warning, it ended.

Almost fifty years later, the killer has not been found or identified.

Where did he go? Why did he stop? Is he still alive—and if so, will he strike again?

Watch now and see what everyone is talking about!

DEARIE

I’m probably the only person in school not obsessed with that Sandman show. I can’t escape it. Popular kids, nerds, teachers, janitors—since the show dropped, everyone’s become an amateur detective. Yesterday, AP Bio didn’t start for fifteen minutes because Mr. Kirby was theorizing about the killer’s incomplete shoe print. He and my best friend, Cole Cardoso, went on and on about how modern technology could recreate the print better than seventies computers (if only the evidence still existed).

“It’s a shame San Diego PD didn’t keep better records before the FBI got involved.” Mr. Kirby sighed.

Cole was trying to convince Kirby that Mr. Sandman knew someone in the force—a father or friend—who messed with the evidence. But Mr. Kirby just shook his head. “Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence.”

Cole rolled his eyes. “Corrupt and incompetent, then.”

Mr. Kirby clumsily tied his obsession back into the bio lesson for the day, but nobody was mad at the distraction. For the first time in his teaching career, he had his students riveted.

Anyway, because Mr. Sandman was never found, this show has my classmates thinking he’s behind every corner. But the slayings happened in San Diego, California, and this is Stone Grove, Arizona: a rusty, dusty canyon town of twenty thousand. A lonely place to live, sure, but unlikely to see the return of a famous boomer slasher. I don’t blame people for gossiping. They like thinking something exciting could happen here.

But Stone Grove isn’t that special.

Which is why I’m not bothered about these death threats that have been popping up. They’re a prank, as simple as that. Today, Queer Club is meeting about the texting drama during free period, and I’m here to make sure they stop believing the whispers that Cole and I are behind these anonymous texts. This happens a lot—people blaming us. Looking cute and inspiring jealousy are kind of our thing. But death threats? That warrants a public denial.

Maybe we should get publicists! High school reputation publicists should be a thing, but until that day comes, I have to make my own statements. So here I am in room 208, the Queer Club’s regularly reserved space—where the band and choir rehearsed before they built the new auditorium. It’s a theater-in-the-round classroom with desks scattered across three levels of crescent-shaped stadium platforms. Since the auditorium opened, it’s become a flex space, either for clubs or a quiet study area—which is why I’m a stranger here. I study in my own time.

Just kidding, I have extremely bad senioritis.

Actually, that’s also a lie. I got early acceptance to my top-choice theater school in LA, so I don’t have senioritis; it’s more like I’m ready to leave this town so I can start living my life–itis.

“I didn’t see you at the meeting last week,” says a pretty, upbeat white girl with long, silvery hair. Her name is Em, she’s a trans sophomore whose cheerleading social circle has never quite bumped into mine—which is a circle of just me and Cole. Em and I wait alone in the cavernous classroom, which usuallyhosts a dozen Queer Club members but so far is shockingly empty.

Typical. I finally come back to this damn club and everybody ditches.