The Gathering (preorder)

(preorder—to be published in Spring 2025)

Dust jacket illustration by Vincent Chong.

Please only order the lettered edition of The Gathering if you have a copy of the lettered edition of The Drift on order. Anyone may preorder the limited edition.

The cross was on fire. A short distance away, a disemboweled pig lay on the ground, guts steaming in the freezing night air.

Its blood had been used to scrawl a message in the snow:

“WE ARE GATHERING.”

There has not been a murder in Deadhart in twenty-five years…

Until the body of a teenage boy is found in an old hunting cabin, completely drained of blood.

Local authorities are quick to accuse the Colony: a community of vampyrs who have recently returned to the area.

Homicide detective Barbara Atkins is sent to the small Alaskan town to investigate, relying on her study of forensic vampyr anthropology to determine Colony involvement. While she knows that the citizens of Deadhart would prefer her to swiftly condemn the vampyrs to a cull—a government sanctioned killing—Barbara has her doubts about the evidence surrounding the murder.

An unexpected ally is found in Jensen Tucker, Deadhart’s former police chief turned recluse, who still bears scars from his investigation into the murder that occurred twenty-five years prior.

As Barbara and Tucker dig into the town’s grisly secrets, they slowly unravel mysteries of the present and the past. But fear and prejudice run deep in Deadhart, and as tensions rise between the townsfolk and the Colony, Barbara and Tucker must ask themselves: is the monster they are looking for among the living or the dead?

Lettered: 26 signed leatherbound copies, housed in a custom traycase

Limited: 300 signed numbered hardcover copies

From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):

“Tudor leverages her snowbound setting for maximum atmosphere, and never lets her high-concept premise overwhelm patient character development. This frostbitten procedural is a bloody good time.”

From The New York Times Book Review:

“Vampires are back, and C.J. Tudor’s The Gathering comes to join the fun… The story’s fast pace and numerous twists keep you hooked, and Tudor’s witty dialogue beautifully punctuates the narrative’s constant action.”

From Booklist:

“Tudor is a masterful storyteller, and here she does some of her finest work, approaching vampyr mythology from an exciting new angle and creating some of her most memorable human characters.”

From Library Journal:

“The vampires are entertaining and original, and the main character is delightfully mundane. Tudor spins a web of plot lines in which it is a pleasure to be caught. The novel is well written and propulsive, with Tudor staying at the top of her game.”