The Cheap Room

Nora Vance is twenty-nine, laid off, and down to what fits in a hatchback. She rents a good room in an old house at the end of a road for a third of what it should cost. She has a hundred and twenty dollars. The last month’s rent, eight hundred and fifty in cash, is due on Halloween. The landlady has three rules. Pay what you owe on the day. Don’t leave a conversation half-finished under this roof. Whatever you hear at night, stay in your room until morning. At three in the morning the ceiling shows her the worst things she has ever done. All of them are true. Then it makes an offer: agree that the worst of her is all of her, and she can rest. The man on the ground floor took that offer eleven years ago. He has not been able to step out of his doorway since. There is a ledger in the basement with her name in it, a plant that has to be fed on Tuesdays, a voicemail she has not played in four months, a sister she walked out on, and her dead mother’s coat at the back of the wardrobe. Some tenants leave this house whole. Some never leave. Nora has nine weeks until Thanksgiving to find out which she is. Cozy horror about the ordinary terrors of being a grown-up. Twenty-four chapters. Chapter One is free.

Film & TV, translation, foreign print, audio drama rights available — inquire at the Rights Desk

The full book is coming soon. Chapter One is free to read now, no signup. Follow Roger Daniel Grubb below and you will get one email the day it is out.

When you buy this book, $4.24 goes to the author — paid weekly. DRM-free. Yours forever. Already bought it and lost the link? Get it back here.