Amanda Blackwood

Shadows. Silence. Smiles. The road was supposed to lead them out of trouble and into a new life. Instead, Philip and Mandy find themselves stranded in the desert, their car swallowed by storms and their path blocked by a washed-out road. Ahead lies the town of O, a place that seems eager to welcome them, though its silence speaks louder than its smiles. At first, O offers them kindness: a guesthouse to rest in, hot meals shared with neighbors, prayers spoken in low, strange cadences.
But as the days stretch on, Mandy begins to feel the town closing in. The people of O never stop watching. Their gatherings grow stranger. Their rituals, more unsettling. Philip insists it is just their way, a harmless eccentricity of a desert community. Mandy is not so sure. Night after night, she lies awake staring at a strange painting in the guesthouse, convinced there is more behind its surface than paint.
And when her own hunger begins to gnaw at her, Mandy realizes she must decide whether to follow Philip's faith in these people, or trust her own mounting fear that the town is not what it pretends to be. "Creeping, atmospheric, and impossible to put down. The slow unraveling of trust is utterly terrifying."  Alecia Bell, Atlantic Review