A new title from Stephen Chbosky, the New York Times Best-Selling author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, will be available on October 1. Imaginary Friend is a horror tale centering around a woman named Kate and her seven-year-old son Christopher, who have fled an abusive relationship and found themselves in a tight-knit community off the beaten track. The official description states:
At first, it seems like the perfect place to finally settle down. Then Christopher vanishes. For six awful days, no one can find him. Until Christopher emerges from the woods at the edge of town, unharmed but not unchanged. He returns with a voice in his head only he can hear, with a mission only he can complete: Build a tree house in the woods by Christmas, or his mother and everyone in the town will never be the same again.
Soon Kate and Christopher find themselves in the fight of their lives, caught in the middle of a war playing out between good and evil, with their small town as the battleground.
It seems the nine years Chobsky put in writing Imaginary Friend shows. It’s a hit with early Amazon reviewers, who call the book “unputdownable” and a “sprawling epic horror that hearkens back to the classics.”
His debut novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, was on the New York Times Best-Seller list for over a year, in addition to winning the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults (2000) and Best Book for Reluctant Readers (2000). Beyond his writing, Chbosky directed the film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and the critically-acclaimed film Wonder.
Imaginary Friend will be published by Grand Central Publishing and released on Oct. 1, 2019. Visit Grand Central Publishing for ordering information or follow Chbosky on Twitter at @StephenChbosky.