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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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CHERISH FARRAH

Bethany C. Morrow

Get Out meets My Sister the Serial Killer in this novel in which a calculating young Black girl manipulates her way into the lives of her Black best friend's white adopted family and begins to suspect that she may not be the only one invested in engineering a place in the affluent household and someone else's motives may be more disturbing than her own.
Seventeen-year-old Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, adopted by a wealthy white family, is something Farrah likes to call WGS - White Girl Spoiled. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can't seem to afford - and it creates a dissonance in her best friend that Farrah can exploit. When her own family is unexpectedly confronted with foreclosure, the calculating Farrah is determined to reassert the control she's convinced she's always had over her life by staying with Cherish, the only person she loves - even when she hates her.

A troubled Farrah manipulates her way further into the Whitman family but the longer she stays, the more her own parents suggest that something is wrong in the Whitman house. She might trust them - if they didn't think something was wrong with Farrah, too. As strange things start happening at the Whitman household - debilitating illnesses, upsetting fever dreams, an inexplicable tension with Cherish's hothead boyfriend, and a strange journal that seems to keep track of what is happening to Farrah - it's nothing she can't handle. But soon everything begins to unravel when the Whitmans invite Farrah closer, and it's anyone's guess who is really in control.

Told in Farrah's unforgettable voice and weaving in searing commentary on race and class, this slow-burn social horror will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page.


Bethany C. Morrow is a recovering expat recently returning from six years in Montreal, Quebec, to live and write in North Country, New York. A California native, she graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz and then studied Clinical Psychological Research at the University of Wales, Bangor before returning to North America to focus on her literary work. She is the author of the adult novel Mem (The Unnamed Press, 2018), the editor of the young adult anthology Take the Mic (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2019), and the author of the bestselling young adult novel, A Song Below Water (Tor Teen, 2020).
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Published 2022-02-08 by Dutton Books

Comments

Bestselling author Bethany C. Morrow gives us a new adult social horror novel that I did not want to stop reading... This is the kind of book that is supposed to disturb readers and make us think, and Morrow achieved both of these goals. This was my first novel by Bethany C. Morrow but will not be my last. Read more...

Cherish Farrah is a delicious page-turner [with a] strong intellectual foundation, set in a world that on the surface feels disturbingly glossy with its champagne and perfect dresses and two Black girls who are clinging to each other.

Bethany C. Morrow was interviewed for Friday's Belletrist BRIEF Q&A. She shares some recommendation reads, articles, other media, and products, as well as a CHERISH FARRAH Spotify playlist. Read more...

A spine-tingling thriller. Read more...

Cherish Farrah will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page. Read more...

Ever since we read Bethany C. Morrow's dystopian novel Mem, we've been eager to see how she'd follow it up. She's gone in unexpected directions since then, covering a lot of stylistic ground, and we are - as the saying goes - here for it. Cherish Farrah is about the fraught friendship between two teenage girls and the unsettling secrets hidden within one of their families, making for a haunting denouement. Read more...

CHERISH FARRAH is featured in Ms. Magazine's roundup of "February 2022 Reads for the Rest of Us." Their reviewer writes: "I love smart, slow-burn horror and this one by bestselling author Bethany C. Morrow examines race, class, friendship, jealousy and loyalty." Read more...

Cherish Farrah got me shivering in all kinds of good ways. Intelligent, insightful, and absolutely creepy, too. The novel builds mystery and intensity with such powerful intent. Bethany C. Morrow knows how to make a reader squirm, and thank goodness for that.

Told in Farrah's chilling, unforgettable voice and weaving in searing commentary on race and class, this slow-burn social horror will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page. Read more...

CHERRISH FARRAH is a Crime Reads "10 NEW BOOKS COMING OUT THIS WEEK" & "BEST NEW CRIME FICTION COMING OUT THIS MONTH": "Cherish Farrah is a stunning one-two punch of social horror and psychological thriller..." Read more...

Bethany Morrow has created a masterpiece... It is a slow burn and well worth the wait... Morrow is skilled with her words as we can feel the tension slowly building between each character, which brings us to a conclusion that is both jaw dropping and also a little weird... I certainly won't forget Cherish Farrah for a long time. Read more...

...Bethany C. Morrow's latest cinematic social-horror novel, Cherish Farrah, is right at home among these uneasy, atmospheric narratives... Farrah's chillingly claustrophobic perspective infuses Cherish Farrah with a deep and creepy dread... Cherish Farrah's race dynamics, by contrast, are a sparking power line, popping, cracking, eventually exploding. Read more...

This chilling, twisty story will keep you on your toes as it explores race and class. Read more...

Morrow returns to adult fiction with a chilling thriller about race, class, and female friendship... The shocking ending to this suspenseful novel with a masterfully drawn narrative voice will leave readers breathless.

The book is at once restrained and ferocious; like Farrah, it maintains control until it can't anymore, and then it erupts. Morrow uses her heroine's warped perspective to examine painful truths about race and class in America, but this isn't a book intended to teach anyone a lesson, except maybe: Be careful. You never know who's really in control. Read more...

Mysterious happenings threaten to upend a teenager's attempt to work her way into her wealthy best friend's family. "Bethany C. Morrow knows how to make a reader squirm," says Victor LaValle. Read more...