
Gondola Nine
por Johnny Gee · 2026-10-19
Every thirteen summers, the abandoned carnival in the woods outside Crestwood wakes up, and its rusted Ferris wheel turns again.
Nobody in town talks about the missing children. Nobody remembers them. Their names fade off the flyers. Their faces vanish from family photos. Their own mothers swear they never had kids.
In the summer of 2026, five fourteen-year-olds find a child's tooth under the swing set, then another, then a whole tree of shoes hanging in the woods. On a dare, they climb aboard the dead wheel. Only four come back down.
Ben is vanishing, not just from Crestwood but from inside his friends' heads. Tommy, Sophie, Ellie and Max have until the end of August to hold onto him and stop the wheel before it takes its next rider. But the woods are creeping into town, the grown-ups refuse to look, and one of the four is starting to believe the wheel is the only place nobody can hurt him.
Dark, disturbing and heartbreaking, Gondola Nine is a coming-of-age horror novel about memory, childhood trauma, and the friends we lose to growing up. It's for fans of Stephen King's IT and The Body, Paul Tremblay, and small-town supernatural horror.
Content note: this book depicts child abuse and violence and is intended for adult readers.
