Welcome to a special Halloween edition of Everything is Canon where Steve is joined by New York Times best selling YA horror author Ryan Douglass! Steve and Ryan about his book The Taking of Jake Livingston, his experience as a debut author, how we feel about Halloween in general, and lots of scary things both fictional and non.
Here’s the summary…
Jake Livingston is one of the only Black kids at St. Clair Prep, one of the others being his infinitely more popular older brother. It’s hard enough fitting in but to make matters worse and definitely more complicated, Jake can see the dead. In fact he sees the dead around him all the time. Most are harmless. Stuck in their death loops as they relive their deaths over and over again, they don’t interact often with people. But then Jake meets Sawyer. A troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school last year before taking his own life. Now a powerful, vengeful ghost, he has plans for his afterlife–plans that include Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about ghosts and the rules to life itself go out the window as Sawyer begins haunting him and bodies turn up in his neighborhood. High school soon becomes a survival game–one Jake is not sure he’s going to win.
!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!
Steve and Ryan do talk about some details from The Taking of Jake Livingston, so, if you haven’t read that book yet and don’t wish to be spoiled at all, better stop listening now, but definitely double back once you’ve read it.
To order a copy of The Taking of Jake Livingston, click HERE!
Cover art by Corey Brickley.
About the Author:
Ryan Douglass was born and raised in Atlanta, where he currently resides, cooking pasta and playing records. He enjoys wood wick candles, falling asleep on airplanes, and advocating for stronger media representation for queer Black people. Ryan is an author, poet, and freelance writer. His work on race, literacy, sexuality, and media representation has appeared in The Huffington Post, Atlanta Black Star, Everyday Feminism, Nerdy POC, Age of Awareness, LGBTQNation, and Medium, among others. THE TAKING OF JAKE LIVINGSTON, is his debut novel.
