The Toll

A 2020 LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST HORROR NOVELFrom Cherie Priest, the author of The Family Plot and Maplecroft, comes The Toll, a tense, dark, and scary treat for modern fans of the traditionally strange and macabre.Take a road trip into a Southern gothic horror novel.Titus and Melanie Bell are on their honeymoon and have reservations in the Okefenokee Swamp cabins for a canoeing trip. But shortly before they reach their destination, the road narrows into a rickety bridge with old stone pilings, with room for only one car.Much later, Titus wakes up lying in the middle of the road, no bridge in sight. Melanie is missing. When he calls the police, they tell him there is no such bridge on Route 177 . . .

New York Journal of Books Praise for The Family Plot

“A masterpiece of disquieted tension.”

Publishers Weekly, stared & boxed review

“Priest has written an excellent modern house story from start to finish.”

Booklist, starred review Praise for Cherie Priest

“Highly recommended.”

Chuck Wendig

“Cherie Priest is our new queen of darkness, folks. Time to kneel before her, lest she take our heads.”

Brian Keene

“With Maplecroft, Cherie Priest delivers her most terrifying vision yet―a genuinely scary, deliciously claustrophobic, and dreadfully captivating historical thriller with both heart and cosmic horror. A mesmerizing absolute must-read.”

io9 on Maplecroft

“One of the best Lovecraftian stories I’ve ever read.”

John Scalzi

“There are few writers I'd rather have keep me up half the night than Cherie Priest.”

About the Author

Cherie Priest debuted to great acclaim with Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Wings to the Kingdom, and Not Flesh Nor Feathers, a trilogy of Southern Gothic ghost stories featuring heroine Eden Moore. She is also the author of Fathom, Dreadnought, and Boneshaker, which was nominated for a Nebula and Hugo Award and won the PNBA Award and the Locus Award for best science-fiction novel. She is an associate editor at Subterranean Press. Born in Tampa, Florida, Priest went to college at Southern Adventist University and earned her master’s in rhetoric at the University of Tennessee. After spending most of her life in the southern United States, she recently moved to Seattle, Washington, with her husband, Aric, and a fat black cat named Spain.

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