Save & Close
October Focus on Horror: Vincent Tirado
About Blog Post
October Focus on Horror: Vincent Tirado
Created by Bob Helmbrecht, collection development librarian
Our Focus on Horror author today is author Vincent Tirado.
Vincent Tirado's debut novel, "Burn Down, Rise Up" was published in 2022. It was the winner of the 2023 Pura Belpré Award Young Adult Author Award. It was also nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel and the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Young Adult Fiction. From the publisher's description: "When an urban legend rumored to trap people inside subway tunnels seems to be behind mysterious disappearances in the Bronx, sixteen-year-old Raquel and her friends team up to save their city--and confront a dark episode in its history in the process."
Tirado followed this up with 2023's young adult novel "We Don't Swim Here," a dark paranormal thriller set in rural Arkansas. Author Ryan La Sala said of the novel: "Breathtaking and uncanny, like drowning on dry land. 'We Don't Swim Here' swept me down into its murky depths and held me there as Vincent Tirado illuminated all the horrors that lurk beneath the surface. I'm never going swimming again."
"We Came to Welcome You" is the author's first adult horror novel, and was just published in September. A novel of suburban horror, set in a gated community, this one is high up on my TBR list. Author Eric LaRocca in reviewing the book called it: "A sinister and compelling psychological chiller about the perils of assimilation in a community that doesn't want you. Difficult to read at times, but that's simply because Vincent Tirado's writing is so raw, so corrosive, so undeniably brilliant."
You can also find one of Tirado's short stories in the anthology "The Black Girl Survives in this One." Check out a book by Vincent Tirado today!