Frank Vines has never been particularly interested in the Devil, and believes the feeling is mutual. Too bad he was born into The Inquiry, the devil-worshipping cult in Carlisle, Maryland; an island town that’s like if Innsmouth had a really strict Home Owner’s Association.  

       At sixteen, Frank is a rising star in The Inquiry: an organization that’s determined to summon “their Devil.” The infernal being they give their souls in exchange for uncanny gifts.

       The night of Frank’s confirmation ritual, something goes wrong. For starters, his family and everyone in town—including his homophobic Aunt Antonia—find out that he’s gay. Then, he accidently opens a portal of eldritch horrors, leaving behind a decimated Inquiry and a cursed Carlisle.  

 

       Ten years spent in a mental hospital later and Frank’s doctors have given up. They can’t shake him of his delusions, his obsession with a cult they believe he fabricated, and have decided to put him on a debilitating amount of antipsychotics. Lucky for him, Harlow, his childhood best friend and fellow unenthusiastic cultist, has come to break him out. Unlucky, she’s come to bring him back home.     

       What awaits Frank is an island full of angry Inquirers, venomous relatives, and Harlow’s hunky fiancé who might be more into Frank than her. While Frank tries to repair relationships and be an openly-gay-if-a-bit-much part of his family/cult—this time without cursing the town to ten years of horrors—Aunt Antonia plots against him, determined to finish the ritual Frank ruined.

 

            Using a carnival that’s never even heard of a safety code and a bar where they only serve Jonestown Punch, Aunt Antonia gathers the necessary sacrifices—and all the mood candles any occultist could ever need—for the summoning.

       With Harlow and his could-be-boyfriend-if-only-the-world-wasn’t-ending in mortal danger, Frank takes a stand against Aunt Antonia. Owning his worth, regardless of his family’s disapproval and his own self-doubt, Frank realizes his uncanny gift and changes, rather than ends, the world.

       And that’s honestly a lot more fun, anyway.

 

            The Cabin in the Woods meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower in this humorous horror novel, THE VINES INQUIRY. Complete at 106,000 words and an own voices story, it will appeal to fans of Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s “Hex,” Rainbow Rowell’s “Carry On” and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” comics. My writing has appeared on Nerve.com and I worked as an Adult fiction intern for The Bent Agency.  

 

       Thanks for your time,  

       Conor Gallagher

       conorgalla@gmail.com