Raves and Reviews
Praise for The Reformatory
A riveting masterpiece that manages to be both heartwarming and chilling…literally impossible to stop reading.”
—Locus Magazine
You’re in for a treat The Reformatory is one of those books you can’t put down. Tananarive Due hit it out of the park.”
—Stephen King
One of the best novels published in 2023. A superb mix of literary fiction, horror, and historical fiction.”
—Gabino Iglesias,, NPR Books
The Reformatory is a masterpiece — a new American classic of the uncanny. I was gripped from the first lines to the catch-your-breath desperation of the final pages. Even in the tale’s grimmest moments, Tananarive Due insists on the almost supernatural power of simple kindness. You have to read this book.”
—Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman
Moby Dick might have flipped America on its back to show the rotting underbelly, but The Reformatory‘s looking just as closely at our bad history, and somehow finding the heart beating underneath it all. This is the novel I’ve been waiting for. It breaks your heart, but it also holds it together.”
—Stephen Graham Jones, bestselling author of The Only Good Indians, and My Heart is a Chainsaw
An epic novel of horror and real history. Tananarive Due displays all her powers as a master of the form, there’s frights and chills and also so much love. I tore through this book. This novel is a straight up masterpiece, it should be read and remembered for a long time.”
—Victor LaValle, bestselling author of The Changeling, and Lone Women
Tananarive Due at her best. Hallucinatory, haunting, terrifying and moving, a tour de force of a novel.”
—S. A. Cosby, bestselling author of All the Sinners Bleed, Razorblade Tears, and Blacktop
The writing here is spectacular; the pacing, engrossing; the setting, heartbreaking but honest; and the characters are given a nuance and depth rarely seen… A masterpiece of fiction.”
—Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
With fully realized characters and well-placed twists, Due ratchets up the tension until the final, extraordinary showdown.”
—Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
A vividly realized page-turner, which is at once an ingenious ghost story, a white-knuckle adventure, and an illuminating if infuriating look back at a shameful period in American jurisprudence.”
—Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
Her fiction is always powerful, and The Reformatory promises to be her most moving—and horrifying—tale yet.”
—VultureOne of the greatest living horror writers…Sure to be as powerful as it is haunting.”
—CrimeReadsDue knocks it out of the park every damn time.”
—Book Riot
Praise for My Soul to Take
Pain, joy, love, madness, and ancient secrets rampage through this smart, beautifully-paced book. Tananarive Due is one of the great heroines of our literature.”
—Peter Straub, New York Times bestselling author of A Dark Matter
Brilliant, moody, dark and delicious, My Soul To Take is Tananarive Due’s best so far, and that is saying a LOT. Absolutely recommended.”
—Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of The King of Plagues and Dust & Decay
The world of My Soul to Take is so enchantingly drawn I could not help but be caught in its spell. From California to Ethiopia to Mexico, Tananarive Due takes you on a nonstop ride that will leave you breathless.”
—Dolen Perkins-Valdez, New York Times bestselling author of Wench
An engrossing—can’t put it down—spooky, sexy, intelligent whirlwind of a ride.”
—Jewell Parker Rhodes
Praise for Joplin’s Ghost
Due shows herself true to her own powerful gift.”
—Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
[M]ore than just a ghost story is Due’s sense of musical and cultural history…Even while she brings to life Scott Joplin the man, Due makes us appreciate Scott Joplin the icon, the symbol. This understanding gives Joplin’s Ghost its haunting power.”
—The Washington Post
In this ambitious and action-packed novel, Tananarive Due blurs genre boundaries as adroitly as her ghost walks through walls. Part love story, part ghost story, part historical fiction, part contemporary adult drama, this book is difficult to categorize—and impossible to put down.”
—Valerie Boyd, author of Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston
In the Media
“Tananarive Due’s ‘The Reformatory’ honors her family’s ghosts”
November 2023
“Tananarive Due: On the Novel That Took a Decade to Write”
November 1, 2023
“Black horror is having a big moment. So is its pioneer, Tananarive Due”
October 26, 2023
“What if we were already living in Octavia Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower?'”
May 18, 2022
“Jordan Peele presents a ‘new’ Black horror”
October 3, 2023
“Tananarive Due’s Haunted History”
June 2, 2023
“Tananarive Due on Reinventing Black Horror”
October 29, 2021
“Dr. Lecter, My Name Is Clarice Starling”
February 23, 2021
