Stutley Tillinghast has gone by many names in his solitary life but has returned to his original just in time for his world to collapse. Hiding in plain sight as the caretaker of a remote rural parish church in Rhode Island, he is mostly left alone save for the brief asides where he must find someone to kill and drain of blood for his survival. A young woman arrives in his quiet town with his last name and bearing a resemblance to the last person he knew to suffer from his same affliction, he is surprised but does his best to avoid her. When the local owner of an inn calls and demands that he come pick up the young woman with his name, he finds he recognizes her symptoms from his own change so long ago. As he cares for her, he writes down the history of his life and the names of those buried in his basement.
Writer Clare Cavenagh grabbed hold of the New England vampire panic and ran with it. From disinterred corpses to at home transfusions, Tillinghast captures the main beats of vampire folklore without ever using the word out in the open. The book captures the atmosphere of history long turned to local folktales.
Tillinghast is available June 23, 2026 from Viking Press.
