Today we’re spotlighting Come Out, Come Out by Natalie C. Parker!
Read on for more about the author, the book, plus enter the giveaway!
About the Author: Natalie C. Parker
Natalie C. Parker is the author and editor of several books for young adults, among them the acclaimed Seafire trilogy. Her work has beenincluded on the NPR Best Books list, the Indie Next List, the TAYSHAS ReadingList, and Junior Library Guild selections. Natalie grew up in a Navy family, finding home in coastal cities from Virginia to Japan. Now she lives with her wife on the Kansas prairie. Find her at nataliecparker.com.
About the Book: Come Out, Come Out
A spine-tingling LGBTQIA+ YA horror about queer teens who accidentally invoke a twisted spirit who promises help but delivers something sinister.
Perfect for fans of Kayla Cottingham, Andrew Joseph White, and Ryan La Sala.
“A searing and poignant portrait of queer identity wrapped in an unflinching tale of terror.” —Kalynn Bayron, New York Times bestselling author of You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight
“Modern horror at its best.” —Bram Stoker Award Nominee Sarah Henning
It’s never been safe for Fern, Jaq, or Mallory to come out to their families. As kids their emerging identities drove them into friendship but also forced them into the woods to hide in an old, abandoned house when they needed safety. But one night when the girls sought refuge, Mallory never made it back home. Fern and Jaq did, but neither survivor remembered what happened or the secrets they were so desperate to keep.
Five years later, Fern and Jaq are seniors on the verge of graduation, seemingly happy in their straight, cisgender lives—until a spirit who looks like Mallory begins to appear, seeking revenge for her death, and the part Fern and Jaq played in it. As they’re haunted, something begins to shift inside them.
They remember who they are.
Who they want to love.
And the truth about the vicious secrets hiding in their woods.
This delightfully dark and pointed novel calls out the systems that erase gay and queer and trans identity, giving space to embrace queerness and to unleash the power of friendship and found family against the real monsters in the world.
~Excerpt~
CHAPTER
ONE
Fern
The hallway was thick with hope, and smelling a lot like honey-lemon throat drops. Fern wasn’t sure she’d ever seen this many people audition for a school play before. Nearly half the student body was lined up outside the theater, every one of them with ear‑ buds in, humming quietly to themselves. Or, in some cases, not so quietly.
She didn’t have to guess at the reason for the sudden popularity of the Port Promise High drama club. It wasn’t like Grease: The Musical was any more beloved now than it had been during her mom’s generation. The reason was posted in bold letters in the light boxes beside the theater doors: gender-neutral casting.
The announcement had come as a shock—to everyone, and to Fern in particular. Not because Port Promise was a conservative- leaning town stitched into the curl of an inlet on the Puget Sound, which it was. But because it was Fern’s senior musical, and she had expected the audition process to be a breeze.
“Just a reminder, folks! If you haven’t signed up yet, the sheet is by the door.” Cambria Collier’s voice rose above the clamor. She’d been stage manager in all but name since freshman year, and now she’d morphed into a creature that was part girl, part Excel spreadsheet. While Ms. Murphy was inside the theater managing the auditions, Cam was out here running the show. “If you want to be considered for multiple roles, you are allowed to perform samples of two songs to demonstrate your vocal range. Not three, not four, not two and a half. Two.”
Fern angled her steps for the door, passing beneath framed photos of her three older sisters: Holly, Clover, and Ivy. Each one cap‑ tured as the leads in their own senior musical. Each effortlessly beautiful and talented. They’d all gone on to be so accomplished that Ms. Murphy now claimed that the drama club turned out more success stories than any other department at the school. Holly, the dancer of the group, had skipped college and gone straight to New York, where she’d already done multiple shows on Broadway. Clover headed in the opposite direction to Hollywood, where she’d won recurring roles on not one but two police procedurals. And Ivy was studying drama at Juilliard on scholarship.
Fern had been walking past the evidence of their success for years, increasingly anxious to see her picture next to theirs. And she was so close now. There had never been a more perfect Sandy Dumbrowski than Fern. Not only did she look the part, from her petite frame to her ivory skin and blond hair, but acting sweet and naive was the oldest trick in the book. Last year she’d been the secondary lead in Once Upon a Mattress, the year before that, Liesl von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Even as a freshman she’d snagged a role with a solo, because of all her sisters, she was the singer. The lead in this musical was destined to be hers.
As long as this gender-neutral casting didn’t fuck anything up.
“Hey, Cam,” Fern said.
“Friend,” Cam said with a sigh, cupping a hand over the microphone of her headset. She was tall and broad across the shoulders, with coppery-brown skin. When she shook her head, her short puff of a ponytail shivered with her. “Can you believe this mess? I swear, if I have to explain what a callback is one more time, I’m going to choose violence. And then I’m going to die.” Cam turned her big brown eyes on Fern and batted them. “Say something nice about me at my funeral. Even if you have to make it up.”
“You want me to tell everyone you were good at math?” Fern
teased.
Cam narrowed her eyes. “Are you here to sign up for something, or are you trying to get yourself cut before you ever get through
those doors?”
“I’m here to sign up,” Fern confirmed, stepping up to the clip‑ board posted by the door while Cam called up the next person in line.
The parts were divided into solo and ensemble roles and then again by male and female. The sign‑up sheet asked for her name, her grade, a phone number, and then there were four checkboxes. The first for female solo roles, the second for female ensemble roles. A third for male solo roles and a fourth for male ensemble roles.
Fern took the pen, added her information, and checked the first box. She knew better than to indicate she was willing to settle for anything less than a solo role. Especially now. Checking one box was a clear signal to Ms. Murphy. It said that Fern knew her abilities, and she was here to be the next Sandy Dumbrowski.
But her gaze stuck on the third box. On the words “male solo.”
What would it be like, she wondered, to stand up on the stage as Danny Zuko? Her hair slicked back, her face contoured into sharp angles instead of soft curves, her breasts bound flat.
She was good at pretending to be other people. At convincing others that she was someone else—a mad queen, a hopeful ingenue, a stilted lover. But there was something different about the idea of performing as Danny.
Her pen hovered over the box, a quiet scratching at the back of her mind. A strange urge to check the box when she knew she shouldn’t.
Still, she hesitated.
“I don’t think there are any trick questions on there.” A voice broke into her thoughts, and though it was gentle, Fern dropped the pen abruptly, her heart kicking out in a panic, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to add my name. If you’re done, I mean. I’m not trying to rush you.”
It was Kaitlyn Birch. Fern had a policy of not having enemies that anyone knew about. Just like she had a policy of never showing her teeth when she smiled and of never coming to school without doing her hair. But Kaitlyn Birch made her want to break her own rules, to let it be known how much she disliked the girl.
For one thing, Kaitlyn Birch was gorgeous, even Fern had to admit that. Her skin was a tawny brown, her eyes a kaleidoscope of sepia and copper. Her spiraling black curls were always in motion, and her stage presence had a weight to it that was impossible to fake. Worst of all, she was every bit as talented as Fern.
And three years in a row, Kaitlyn and Fern had competed for the same roles. Fern had won every time by the skin of her teeth. But last year, after Kaitlyn was cast as the Nightingale in Once Upon a Mattress, she had looked Fern dead in the eye, smiled with her teeth, and promised that she would win the lead in the next spring musical.
Fern wasn’t about to let that happen.
She slipped into a disarming smile without even trying, the one that her mom said made her look sweet and deserving.
“I was just taking a moment,” she said, stepping out of Kaitlyn’s way. “You know, last high school musical and all.”
“It’s wild,” Kaitlyn agreed, adding her name to the list. “It might even be our last musical ever.”
Fern smiled tightly. She was too accustomed to Kaitlyn’s subtle barbs to let one as trite as this get under her skin, but the turnout for the audition already had her rattled, and all she managed in response was “Mm.”
“Well, break a leg up there,” Kaitlyn said, and without a beat of hesitation, she marked all four boxes. Then she turned and took
her place at the end of the line.
“I could forget to call her name,” Cam leaned over to whisper.
“For a fee, of course.”
Fern laughed. “I don’t need to cheat to win. I need to focus.”
And to focus, she needed to be somewhere else.
With a wave, Fern left the crowded hallway and ducked into the stairwell. Far enough away to escape the frenetic pre-audition energy, but not so far that she wouldn’t hear Cam shout her name.
She climbed to the first landing, then slumped down beneath the window and pressed her back into the cool, cinder block wall.
Closing her eyes, Fern pictured herself onstage. The scuffed black surface beneath her feet, the hot lights against her skin, the way her voice would travel through the wide-open space. She pictured herself reciting her monologue—a selection from A Chorus Line—and she pictured herself nailing it before singing a few bars of “Summer Nights.” Then she pictured the smile on Ms. Murphy’s face, knowing she’d found her Sandy.
Her mother always said, If you want to see success, you have to imagine it first.
And she could already see herself on opening night.
Her phone buzzed, the text thread she shared with her sisters lighting up with a message from Clover, always the one to track important dates. Break a leg, Fernling! she said, adding three drama
mask emojis.
Holly followed up instantly with a crossed-fingers emoji and several hearts, probably sent on the sly from some dance rehearsal, and Ivy was after that, asking, Is it already time for the musical? Eeeeeee! Can’t wait to hear more!
It hadn’t always been easy to be the youngest of four, especially when the three older siblings were so much closer in age. By the time Fern was a sophomore, they’d all graduated and moved out. Their lives had become impressive and real in the blink of an eye, and everything Fern was worried about seemed small in comparison. Even her admission to the competitive musical theater program at Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio seemed inconsequential compared to their accomplishments. But her sisters had always made an effort to make her feel included, and at moments like this, that mattered.
Fern responded with a string of hearts and shut off her notifications.
Then she heard Cam call her name. It was her turn.
Inside, the theater was dim and quiet except for the beam of the spotlight pinned to the stage and the whisper of shuffling paper. The stage was modest, but the proscenium arch was draped in red velvet curtains and gold tassels, the elegant frame artfully deco‑ rated with leaves painted every shade of cream and taupe and rose gold. To Fern, it felt like the beating heart of the school.
“Is that you, Fern Jensen? Come on down,” Ms. Murphy called from her seat in the dead center of the auditorium. Even from this distance, Fern could see her signature cat-eye glasses and the plaid wrap she’d worn nearly every day Fern had known her. She was short and white, with a wave of soft brown hair woven through with silver. She had a classic rockabilly-meets-Scottish-lass sort of look that really worked for her. “The stage awaits.”
Fern let the slope of the floor draw her down the aisle. The house lights were low, and the spotlight carved a five-foot circle on the
scuffed black stage. There was no one in the lighting booth, though, so it wouldn’t track movement. Part of the challenge of the audition was staying inside the circle’s sharp boundaries. It was harder than it seemed, but Fern was a professional.
When Fern stepped into her light, it was like walking into another world. One where she transformed into something other than herself—an innocent girl falling in love for the first time or one who’d seen some shit and was ready to tell you about it. She could be good or evil or chaotic, and no one in the world would judge her for it because it was all make-believe.
“Ready when you are,” Ms. Murphy prompted, already scratching out a note on her pad of paper.
“So,” Fern started, cocking her hip to one side and folding her= arms over her chest. Defiant but guarded as she settled into the character of eighteen-year-old Valerie Clarke, dead set on becoming a Rockette.
The words flowed, and she relaxed into the scene. Val wasn’t as innocent as Sandy Dumbrowski, but that didn’t make them opposites. Both were soft girls toughened by injustice. Who’d been hurt once, then made sure it would never happen again.
The monologue spoke to Fern in a way she couldn’t explain. She’d never been hurt like either of them, but there was something about their determination that resonated with her.
She let her eyes adjust to the bright light, focusing on the one spot at the back of the theater she could always see through
the glare. With a small jolt of surprise, she realized that there was someone there.
Ms. Murphy was adamant about having closed-door auditions on the first round. There had never been an exception to the
open call.
But there was someone here. The barest imprint of a person surfacing through the shadows. Fern shifted, making the slight hitch in her performance seem intentional as she angled her head for a better view. The figure rose from their seat and began to move toward the aisle, their steps slow and stilted.
A chill moved down Fern’s back as the figure paused at the end of the row and stopped, their outline small and inky and unmoving
in the shadows. When they stepped into the aisle, Fern could see that it was a girl.
Eyes wide. Hair the brilliant red of maple leaves in fall. Mouth open in a silent scream.
Then, all at once, the figure moved again. This time with light‑ ning speed. Racing down the aisle with one hand outstretched. Rushing past the row where Ms. Murphy sat, toward the stage. Toward Fern.
The girl surged onto the stage, white hands reaching for Fern’s throat. Fern stumbled back, tripping over her own feet, desperate to escape the terrifying, feral girl—
“Fern?” Ms. Murphy’s voice called out. “Is everything okay?”
Fern gasped. She was alone on the stage, her butt aching from the fall. The words she was supposed to say next flew from her mind. Silence rose around her like the tide.
“I—” She shifted her gaze briefly to Ms. Murphy, who was wearing an expression of confused concern. She had clearly not noticed anything other than Fern’s little freak-out. “Sorry, there was a wasp and I’m allergic.”
“Do you want to take it from the top?” Ms. Murphy asked.
“Um, yes,” Fern managed, sweat beading at her temples as she struggled to slide into one of her practiced smiles. “I’m so sorry. Yes, please.”
“Okay, just, whenever you’re ready.” Ms. Murphy adjusted her glasses as she scratched out another note on her pad. It couldn’t be good, but Fern felt certain that it was about to get worse, because her speech was gone. The words she’d spent hours memorizing were just gone.
All that remained was the memory of the girl in the dark, her mouth stretched wide in a silent scream.
Title: Come Out, Come Out
Author: Natalie C. Parker
Release Date: August 27, 2024
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers; G.P. Putnam’s Sons BFYR
ISBN-13: 9780593619391
Genre: Young Adult Fiction – Thrillers & Suspense
Age Range: 14 and up
*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*
