Tillinghast (Pre-Order June 23rd 2026)

Tillinghast by Clare Cavenagh Pre-Order June 23rd 2026

A dark, mesmerizing literary horror debut inspired by the New England vampire panic, Tillinghast by Clare Cavenagh is a haunting novel of immortality, hunger, fatherhood, and the terrible cost of survival.

For decades beyond any normal human lifespan, Stutley Tillinghast has lived quietly as the minister of a remote Rhode Island parish. Beneath his modest home lies the truth: a cellar of shallow graves, the remnants of a life sustained by blood. There is a name for what he is, but Tillinghast prefers not to use it. He has needs, and when they become unbearable, he fulfills them.

In all his long years, he has known only one other like himself — the woman who made him what he is, the woman he still aches for.

Then a young woman arrives in town bearing his last name. She looks uncannily like that lost love. She is gravely ill. And Tillinghast recognizes her symptoms all too well — because only someone like him can cure her.

As past and present collide, Tillinghast becomes a chilling meditation on desire and restraint, inheritance and redemption, monstrosity and love. Inspired by real nineteenth-century history, this is a novel that reimagines the vampire myth as something intimate, tragic, and unexpectedly tender.

Atmospheric, beautifully written, and deeply moving, Tillinghast is a rare literary horror debut — one that will leave readers unsettled, hopeful, and rooting, against every instinct, for the monster.