Where They Wait: A Novel

“Where They Wait is so readable, you’ll be a couple of hundred pages in before you realize you’re terrified…and then you can’t put it down. Mesmerizing.” —Stephen King

“Tense and twisty.” —Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Southern Vampire Mysteries

“A taut, creepy techno-chiller that will leave you hearing ghosts.” —Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Survivor Song

A new supernatural novel about a sinister mindfulness app with fatal consequences from the New York Times bestselling author of The Chill.

Recently laid-off from his newspaper and desperate for work, war correspondent Nick Bishop takes a humbling job: writing a profile of a new mindfulness app called Clarity. It’s easy money, and a chance to return to his hometown for the first time in years. The app itself seems like a retread of old ideas—relaxing white noise and guided meditations. But then there are the “Sleep Songs.” A woman’s hauntingly beautiful voice sings a ballad that is anything but soothing—it’s disturbing, and more of a warning than a relaxation—but it works. Deep, refreshing sleep follows.

So do the nightmares. Vivid and chilling, they feature a dead woman who calls Nick by name and whispers guidance—or are they threats? And her voice follows him long after the song is done. As the effects of the nightmares begin to permeate his waking life, Nick makes a terrifying discovery: no one involved with Clarity has any interest in his article. Their interest is in him.

Scott Carson is the pseudonym of Michael Koryta, a New York Times bestselling author whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages, adapted into major motion pictures, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A former private investigator and reporter, his writing has been praised by Stephen King, Michael Connelly, and Dean Koontz, among many others. Raised in Bloomington, Indiana, he now lives in Indiana and Maine.