Decomposition Book

By: Sara van Os

Published by Hanover Square Press, 2026-05-19

An emotional, electrifying, and darkly hilarious debut about a woman who finds a dead body and can't give up its ghost, for fans of Mona Awad, Yellowjackets, and weird girl fiction. Spiraling from a disastrous falling-out with her best friend, Savannah retreats to her parents' empty lake house in upstate New York to tend her wounds. Isolated and reeling from rejection, she spends her days in a fog, drinking and overthinking in equal worrisome measure. Until she wakes up one morning in the woods behind the house--next to a dead body. Instead of calling the police, Savannah reads the journal she finds nearby, reliving the last desperate months of this woman's life lost in the wilderness, fighting for survival. Ava, as it turns out, is more than just a cold, lonely corpse. She was funny. She was smart. And Savannah has finally found someone she can talk to... As she pushes deeper into Ava's harrowing story, Savannah notices a change, a shift in her reality. Each page brings her closer to the Ava from the journal...and the ghost before her now. Before long, Savannah feels something for Ava she hasn't felt for anyone else--and there's a good chance letting go would haunt her for the rest of her life. Is Savannah finally losing her grip? Or has she found the friend she's needed all along?