Loyalty is thrilled to welcome Kay Chronister and Liberty Hardy for a virtual event celebrating Desert Creatures! This event will be held digitally via Crowdcast. Click here to register for the event with a donation of any amount of your choice. You can also order the book from our website to be automatically added to the event's registration list. Donations will go to the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project. There will also be an option to snag the book during the event.

Eleven-year-old Magdala and her father have been exiled from their home; they flee through the harsh landscape of the American West, searching for refuge. As violence pursues them, they join a handful of survivors on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Las Vegas, where it is said that vigilante saints reside, bright with neon power. Magdala, born with a clubfoot, is going to be healed. But when faced with the strange horrors of the Sonoran Desert, one by one the pilgrims fall victim to a hideous sickness—leaving Magdala to fend for herself.

After surviving for seven years on her own, Magdala is tired of waiting for her miracle. Magdala turns her gaze to Las Vegas once more, and this time, nothing will stop her. She recruits an exiled Vegas priest at gunpoint to serve as her guide, and the pair form a fragile alliance as they navigate the darkest and strangest reaches of the desert, on a journey that takes her further from salvation even as she nears the holy city.

Kay Chronister is a finalist for the Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Awards for her short fiction, which has appeared in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Dark, and elsewhere. Her first collection, Thin Places, was published by Undertow Publications in 2020. Originally from Washington State, she has spent time in Virginia, Cambodia, and Arizona. She now lives in the Philadelphia area with her dogs and her husband. Desert Creatures is her first novel.

Liberty Hardy is a senior contributing editor for Book Riot and cohost of the popular All the Books! podcast. She lives in the great state of Maine, where she reads over 600 books a year and hangs out with her three cats, who hate to read.

Please note Loyalty has a zero tolerance policy for harassment or intimidation of any kind during this virtual event.

Kay Chronister and Liberty Hardy for DESERT CREATURES