Crafting for sinners : a novel / Jenny Kiefer.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A queer woman must fight her way out of a craft store run by a megachurch in this gripping survival horror novel by Jenny Kiefer, author of This Wretched Valley .

"You will compulsively turn these pages well into the dead of night."--Paul Tremblay, New York Times best-selling author of Horror Movie and The Cabin at the End of the World

Ruth is trapped. She's stuck in her small, religious hometown of Kill Devil, Kentucky, stuck in the closet, and stuck living paycheck to paycheck. After her manager finds out that she lives with her girlfriend, Ruth is fired from her job at New Creations--a craft store owned by the church that dominates life in Kill Devil.

In an act of revenge, Ruth attempts to shoplift some yarn but is caught red-handed. Instead of calling the police, the employees lock her in the store--and attack her. As Ruth fights for her life using only the crafting supplies at hand, she plunges deeper into the tangled web of the New Creationists, who are hiding a terrible secret that threatens not only her but the entire town.

Urgent, scathing, and utterly original, Crafting for Sinners cements Kiefer's status as a dazzling new star in horror.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Chapter 1 Stab. Strangle. Pull out the guts. Ruth repeated this refrain in her head as she worked her stitches across the row. Her knuckles ached from the repetitive motion, but she had a deadline. Her phone buzzed on the couch next to her. "It better not be another message from Charlie," she muttered under her breath. He'd been sending her text messages all week, saying he was sorry about how things went down, that he had a daughter now and it made him re-evaluate. That he wanted to make things right --whatever that meant. He'd been her fiancé, and they'd broken up just a few months before their would-be vows, but that was years ago--and felt like a lifetime ago. She'd ignored every single one of the fifteen messages he'd sent so far. Would it be possible to get the blanket tomorrow? I can pay extra. Shit. Not Charlie--her client. Holding the stitches in place on the needles, Ruth lifted the partially finished blanket aloft. It wasn't even at the halfway point. Not only did the commissioner want it by tomorrow, but just last week she'd asked if it would be possible to make the blanket larger. The woman had asked for a baby blanket, but then decided she wanted something the kid could grow into. Of course she'd pay extra, she'd said. Ruth had almost been finished with the thing. It took her nearly an hour to unravel the work she'd already knit, rewind the skeins, and cast on with three times the number of stitches. She could maybe finish by tomorrow if she knitted literally every second up to the moment it would be picked up, assuming she had enough yarn. But she had to try. She really needed the money. The "moving fund" mocked her from the mantel: an oversized ceramic jar with only a few crinkled bills and pennies in its belly. On the outside, thorny, fruit-bearing vines had been hand-painted. Inscribed on the lid were foreign characters of some unknown language. Ruth and her girlfriend Abigail had started the fund soon after Abigail's mom passed, both hoping to move to a more progressive area, one where they didn't have to pretend to be roommates or keep the curtains closed if they wanted to dance in the kitchen or kiss each other goodbye. Instead, they were stuck in a town of twelve thousand that boasted the largest Christian congregation in the entire state, some flashy new sect calling themselves New Creationists. The jar became a chicken-and-egg situation. It would be easier to fill it if they could move away and get higher-paying jobs in a place with more opportunities--but they needed the jar to be full in order to move away and get those jobs. So they were stuck in Kill Devil, taking temp gigs, odd jobs, and the occasional crafting commission, the internet too slow to do anything remote. And Ruth constantly had to pull painful paper guts from the jar to pay for insulin or syringes or test strips. "How's the blanket coming?" Abigail asked, sitting on the couch next to Ruth. "I'm making a dent, I guess," Ruth replied. She leaned against Abigail, lifting her face for a kiss. But Abigail didn't lean back. Instead, her eyes flitted across the room, lasering in on every window. A habit she'd inherited from her mother. Ruth followed her gaze as Abigail leapt from the couch. One set of curtains was not fully closed, a sliver of midmorning light poking in, a glimpse of a single tree trunk from the untamed land that lined their yard in view. Abigail pinched them shut. Ruth rolled her eyes. "Like mother, like daughter." Abigail's mom, Judy, had always been deeply paranoid--the insane column of locks that still lined the inside of their front door was a testament to that. Now Ruth had begun to notice some similar inherited qualities in Abigail. "One of us has to be cautious," Abigail said. "There's always that weird birder hanging out by the woods. What if he sees us kissing through the window? What if your old manager from New Creations finds out where you live? Didn't they fire you over it?" "He's known for ages and hasn't done anything," Ruth said. She'd been let go nearly three years ago. "Why would they start now?" Excerpted from Crafting for Sinners: A Novel by Jenny KIEFER All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Ruth lives with her girlfriend in Kill Devil, KY, a town run by the New Creations Church. Recently fired from her job at the church-owned craft store, Ruth is desperate to finish making a blanket that has been commissioned from her; its fee will augment their moving fund. She goes back to the craft store to steal yarn for the blanket and is confronted by employees loyal to the church. They don't want her arrested; instead, they intend to use her in a ritual. As she fights for her life, Ruth must deploy her knowledge of the store and its contents, all the while struggling against her own body, as her blood sugar fluctuates without her insulin. This battle will turn out to be larger than Ruth, as the terror runs deep into the land itself. Mixing religious cult and liminal-space tropes, Kiefer (This Wretched Valley) presents a visceral, grimly comedic, but deadly serious novel that will whip readers into a frenzy of fear as well as anger. VERDICT Well-marketed as Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix meets Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle, Kiefer's novel will also appeal to fans of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman and Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram.

Booklist Review

In dead-end Kill Devil, Kentucky, queer, diabetic Ruth barely scrapes by crafting original pieces and shoplifting her supplies from New Creations, the local, church-run crafting store that fired her for living with her girlfriend. Under a tight deadline for a new commission, Ruth's latest shoplifting excursion goes awry when she's caught red-handed--and instead of calling the police, the cult-like employees lock her in the store. With nothing but crafting supplies at her disposal, Ruth struggles to free herself as the New Creationists become increasingly insistent that she is needed for a mysterious ritual. Kiefer's nail-biting survival horror (following 2024's This Wretched Valley) ups the ante as Ruth's blood sugar plummets and she's forced to utilize her crafting know-how to execute gruesome kills against her attackers without losing consciousness. Shot through with elements of dark humor and ripped-from-the-headlines references to a certain real-life crafting retailer, Kiefer's compelling and incisive latest will appeal to fans of Horrorstör (2014), by Grady Hendrix, and Hide (2022), by Kiersten White.