Where He Can't Find You by Darcy Coates (The Whispering Dead) is the prolific adult author's first YA title, an eerie and viscerally frightening work of horror in which a former coal mining town is terrorized by an evil entity known as "the Stitcher."
Abby Ward lives in dull and lifeless Doubtful, Ill. For the past several decades, denizens of Doubtful have disappeared under mysterious circumstances, only for their dismembered body parts to be found days or weeks later, sewn together with bright red thread. Residents blame these disappearances on the Stitcher, an entity who some believe is a monster and others believe is an unassuming yet off-putting local man named Charles Vickers who makes an appearance at every crime scene. Abby and her friends--the Jackrabbits--try their best to keep each other safe, but when Abby's sister, Hope, is taken from her bedroom in the middle of the night, the Jackrabbits launch an investigation to discover the truth about the Stitcher and save Hope from its subterranean lair.
Where He Can't Find You is chilling and grotesque; throughout the novel, Coates is unapologetic in her use of body horror, describing tumor-ridden deer, decaying skin, and mutilated masses of flesh. But Coates does a great job of balancing the gorier aspects with moments of warmth between the characters. The result is a tapestry of fear, hope, cruelty, tenderness, terror, and delight, all stitched together with bright red thread. --Cade Williams, freelance book reviewer.