We are delighted to share the cover for JP Rose’s incredible first YA novel, The Haunting of Tyrese Walker which is illustrated by the brilliant Dananyani Muwanigwa.
Set in Jamaica, it follows Tyrese who following a traumatic event and while immersed in grief, goes to visit his family in the Caribbean. From the first night, strange things start happening: impossible visions, blackouts, swarms of insects, and the discovery of a grave hidden deep in the forest… Tyrese can’t explain what’s going on and he’s scared that he’s losing his grip on reality.
Then Tyrese is warned he’s being hunted by the mysterious Shadow Man. Under threat, Tyrese and his friends set out on a terrifying journey across the island to try and uncover the Shadow Man’s sinister history. Who can Tyrese trust when his own mind is falling apart and there’s nowhere left to hide?
The Haunting of Tyrese Walker publishes 6 October in paperback (£8.99), and can be pre-ordered on Waterstones, Amazon and via your local bookshops.
About the publication and the inspiration about the book, author JP Rose has said:
Having been adopted, natural curiosity as a teenager led me to discover more about my birth family: my paternal heritage being a wonderful diversity of Jamaican and Nigerian. And it was whilst visiting family for the first time, I initially heard about duppies. Even all those years ago, they sprung my imagination, and I immediately knew this captivating part of Jamaican folklore was something I one day wanted to write about.
I adore psychological horror, and it can be a fantastic vehicle to explore and navigate difficult emotions, issues and situations, feeling like one of the few places to experience fear safely. And although I’ve always written adult fiction, my passion, my desire, was to write and tell stories for teens and young YA. Despite the obvious differences writing for adult readers (I felt a huge responsibility to create an honest portrayal of the complex relationship young people can have with grief), I found the whole process empowering, cathartic and uplifting.
Initially, the genesis of this story was born out of personal loss – my mother died and my heart was broken into a hundred thousand pieces – but then, as stories so often do, it took on an energy of its own: a celebration of Jamaica, of life, of death, of friendship, of courage of the juxtaposition between the beauty and the heat of Jamaica, with the darkness and cold bite of grief, weaving in and mixing the island’s supernatural folklore with my own paranormal creations.
