Author: Tanya Pell

In this "creepy as hell" (Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author) queer retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne classic gothic horror story, Rappaccini's Daughter, a young woman is lured to a lush estate owned by a botanist who might be hiding dark secrets.

Cordelia Beecher is on the run. In search of her missing brother Edward, she has fled the oppressive charity school she was raised in, desperate to find the only family she knows. Using clues from his past letters, she sets off for the sleepy town of Farrow, but everyone there claims to have never heard of Edward--not even the man he was supposedly working for as an apprentice.

With nowhere to go, Cordi turns to Lady Evangeline, a local female botanist who owns the magnificent Edenfield estate. The benevolent lady of the manor has made it her mission to take young, often traumatized, women into her employ and protect them from man's world of wicked desires and deceits. Hired as a maid and companion to her enigmatic daughters, Prim and Briar, Cordi quickly settles into Edenfield. Even as her relationship with Briar blossoms, Cordi can't help but suspect that there are secrets in the estate...and when she stumbles across evidence that Edward was once there, she's determined to find answers.

Atmospheric, eerie, and thoroughly original, Her Wicked Roots will establish Tanya Pell as a "wickedly creepy" (Josh Winning, author of Heads Will Roll) and vital voice in gothic horror.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 08/04/2026
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.04oz
Size: 8.25h x 5.31w x 0.88d
ISBN: 9781668087305

About the Author
Tanya Pell is a narcoleptic horror author who drinks bougie coffee and lives in the American South. She is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Her Wicked Roots, Cicada, and several short stories featured in anthologies like Mother Knows Best and Obsolescence.