The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is thrilled to welcome local author Donyae Coles to Harrisburg for the launch of her new novel, Midnight Rooms. This event includes a conversation, audience Q&A, and signing. Coles will be in conversation with author Holly Wendt. This event is free and open to the public!

To enter the signing line, books must be purchased from the Midtown Scholar Bookstore. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event, or you may preorder a copy of the book for pickup/shipment.

About the Book:

Set in a foreboding Gothic mansion and infused with the heightened paranoia and creeping horror of novels like Catherine House and Crimson Peak, a spine-chilling debut historical thriller from a fresh voice in the genre that will leave you questioning who, or what, you can trust . . . including your own sanity.

England, 1840. Orabella Mumthrope spies an unexpected visitor in her uncle’s parlor. Scruffy in appearance yet claiming to be the scion of a fabulously wealthy family, Elias Blakersby declares a deep desire to make Orabella his wife. The orphaned daughter of a white man and a Black woman—an outsider with no fortune or connections—Orabella never expected to marry. But her uncle has many debts, and Orabella, curious about the seeming devotion Elias bestows upon her, agrees.

The new bride is quickly whisked away to Korringhill Manor, the Blakersby family estate, and far from everything she knows. Expecting splendor, Orabella is shocked to find decay, skittish servants, and curt elders. But her kind new husband’s loving touch, promises of a happy life together, and his assurances she’ll never want for anything soothe her concerns.

Yet there is a darkness deep within this house. Rooms are locked or hidden away, and the walls seem to thrum with secrets. Orabella can never venture outside unattended; she spends her days having tea with a catatonic sister-in-law and evenings at Elias’s side, dutifully hosting lavish dinners. The darkness soon begins to engulf her, too. Becoming dizzy and drowsy after dinner, she falls into a fitful sleep filled with macabre dreams, and is awakened by blood-curdling screams in the night. In the morning she rises from her bed covered in mysterious bruises. Confused and terrified, she begins to question where her dreams end and reality begins. The longer Orabella stays in this place, the more she loses parts of herself . . . how long until she no longer exists?

Midnight Rooms is a sweeping saga with supernatural undertones set in Victorian England. Vibrating with tension, richly atmospheric—haunted by ghosts, guilt, and familial bonds—it is an electrifying story that will linger in your dreams.

About the Authors:

Donyae Coles has a variety of puffy princess dresses and one cat but she wants more of both. She has traveled the world four times over and may do so again. Her short work has been published in a variety of horror and other speculative fiction anthologies and magazines such as Nightmare Magazine, Pseudopod, and All These Sunken Souls. When she's not writing, she's telling her stories with a paintbrush. Her website is www.donyaecoles.com.

Holly M. Wendt is the author of Heading North (Braddock Avenue Books, 2023). They are a recipient of the Robert and Charlotte Baron Fellowship for Creative and Performing Artists from the American Antiquarian Society and fellowships from the Jentel Foundation and Hambidge Center. Their work has appeared in Passages North, Shenandoah, Barrelhouse, Memorious, and elsewhere. Holly is a former Baseball Prospectus contributor and contributing editor for The Classical. Their nonfiction has appeared in Bodies Built for Game: The Prairie Schooner Anthology of Contemporary Sports Writing, The Rumpus, and Sport Literate. Holly is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lebanon Valley College.