May the Dead Keep You

By: Jill Baguchinsky

Published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2026

There's nowhere Catie East would rather be than the redwood forest that surrounds her family's unusual historic home, the Heights.

She prefers being alone in the forest. People are...complicated. But when a scientist and his son move into the estate's cottage, planning to study the woods around them, the boy catches Catie's eye. And when a dead woodpecker miraculously comes back to life in his precious hands...he captures her heart.

Necromancy isn't the only strange thing happening in the Heights.There's an unfamiliar face in the mirror. Blood on the floors. Eyes in the wallpaper. And the men around her--including her once-sweet nature boy--are becoming something else. Something possessive and frightening. Something violent.

As the Heights's dark history starts to come to light, Catie discovers that the home she loves is imbued with pain. And even though the pain isn't her own, it will corrupt her and the people around her all the same--unless she can stop it.

A story about breaking cycles of abuse and overcoming generational trauma, May the Dead Keep You is an edge-of-your-seat read--equally horrifying, heart-wrenching, and hopeful.