A sinister card game tests the fortitude of four teens who must survive an unforgiving underworld and rescue the friend they left for dead in this magnificently macabre YA horror novel.
Four years ago, Madeline, Owen, Dax, Emerson, and Ian found a game of cards in a cave and began to play. Ominous noises and shaking walls forced them to stop and flee--but Ian never made it out. The now estranged surviving teens have each been visited by the figure of Ian: "Why'd you leave me in the dark?" They return to the cave, and are transported to Meido, a hellscape of Japanese myth, where they must complete seven challenges by dawn, or Ian will be trapped forever. The teens' mutual animosity pushes everyone past their limits, but as they win more cards, it becomes clear that the constantly changing game wants players for reasons of its own.
Kristen Simmons (Vale Hall trilogy) infuses her plot with the tragic story of the Emperor Izanagi and his shunned Empress Izanami. The atmosphere is a haunting, decomposing landscape with a slowly opening monstrous eye in the clouds and gravel made of bones. Unimaginable horrors--a girl made of eels, an old man desperate for skin--torment the players. The teens find relief in humor ("I would give three toes right now for you to shut up"; "I'd give three toes for a fat free vanilla latte") as they seek the roots of their relationships. Find Him Where You Left Him Dead is a disturbing tale that slinks creepily to its chilling end. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer