Michael Bailey returns to the strange town of Brenden, Washington to expand the events of Palindrome Hannah . A family is torn apart after a horse foaling goes terribly wrong; a sickly man recounts getting mauled by his neighbor's dog; an undead priest is reborn into the world over a hundred years after his untimely death; two brothers run for their lives through a dead field of wheat. Holding all this together is a young boy named Todd, whose survival pivots on the balance of life and death, and a deranged mental patient with a burnt rose tattoo, whose reality is paradoxical. While his previous novel may have left you questioning coincidence, Phoenix Rose will leave you questioning your very own existence.
Michael Bailey is a recipient and ten-time nominee of the Bram Stoker Award, a five-time Shirley Jackson Award nominee, and a three-time recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Award, along with several independent publishing accolades. He has written, edited, and published many books of various genres. His latest is Righting Writing, a nonfiction narrative used as curriculum for aspiring writers, and Silent Nightmares: Haunting Stories to Be Told on the Longest Night of the Year, an anthology co-edited with Chuck Palahniuk to be published by Simon & Schuster in fall of 2026. He is also the screenwriter for Madness and Writers, a creative documentary series about writers, and a producer for numerous film projects. Find him online at nettirw.com, or on social media @nettirw. He is represented by Lane Heymont of the Tobias Literary Agency.
I loved this book as the follow up to PALINDROME HANNAH. The author did an excellent job continuing stories and tying them together with a bit of a surreal, dark fantasy take this time around.