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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
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THE SERPENT KING
An exciting new voice in YA fiction that readers have called “Southern-fried John Green.”
Dillard Early, Jr., Travis Bohannon, and Lydia Blankenship are three friends who have one thing in common: none of them seem to fit the mold. Dill grew up in the Pentecostal faith and his father went to prison during his freshman year; Travis is a gentle giant who works at his family’s lumberyard and carries a wizard’s staff; and Lydia comes from an affluent family, runs a fashion blog, and is actively plotting her escape from Redneckville, Tennessee.
But Dill has a cursed name. His grandfather, Dillard Early, became obsessed with slaughtering snakes after one killed his daughter, wearing their skins to try to ward off his grief. The locals took to calling him “the Serpent King” before he committed suicide by poison. Dill’s father, also named Dillard Early, was a pastor whose flock handled serpents and drank poison as signs of faith—he went to prison for a heinous crime.
When Dill’s mother pressures him to drop out of high school to work full?time to help pay off the debts stemming from his father’s trial, Dill realizes that he’s quickly approaching a crossroads to adulthood, not to mention Lydia is leaving for college and he’s quietly in love with her. With the help of his friends, Dill finds a self?confidence he didn’t know he had. However, a shattering act of random violence forces Dill to reckon with the history of darkness— serpents and poison and self?destruction—that is his inheritance.
Jeff Zentner was a singer?songwriter and guitarist who released five albums and appeared on recordings with Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, and Debbie Harry. He gave a TED talk on creativity and served as managing editor of the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment Law and Practice. He lives in Nashville with his wife and son.
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Book
Published 2016-03-08 by Crown Books for Young Readers |