Perfect Circle

Sean Stewart's much-anticipated eighth novel is a dark, funny, fast-moving thriller that you won't want to put down. Stewart was the lead author behind the innovative interactive web game known as "The Beast" (inspired by the film A.I.,) which became a break-out cult hit. He is the winner of the Arthur Ellis, Aurora, and World Fantasy awards, and the author of The New York Times Notable Books Mockingbird and Resurrection Man.

William "Dead" Kennedy has problems. He's haunted by family, by dead people with unfinished business, and by those perfect pop songs that you can't get out of your head. He's a 32-year-old Texan still in love with his ex-wife. He just lost his job at Pet-Co for eating cat food. His air-conditioning is broken, there's no good music on the radio, and he's been dreaming about ghost roads.

When Will's cousin ("My dad married your Aunt Dot's half-sister") calls in the middle of the night about a dead girl haunting his garage, it seems like an easy way to make a thousand dollars. But nothing is ever that simple, especially when family is involved. Will's mother is planning a family reunion of epic proportions. Will's ex-wife is married to a former Marine. His twelve-year-old daughter Megan thinks Will needs someone to look after him. And recently his dead relatives seem to want something from him.

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"Perfect Circle is a perfect read, exciting, unique, everything here but the Second Coming, but, Sean Stewart himself is the prize. What a talent. Write on, my man. Write on." -- Joe Lansdale, Sunset and Sawdust

"Stephen King meets Ibsen. Trust me." -- Neal Stephenson, The Confusion

"Needy Ghosts, bar fights, concealed weapons, R.E.M., and ramen noodles -- Perfect Circle is an irreverent Texas treat. Sean Stewart is one bright, funny writer." -- Stewart O'Nan, The Night Country

"Will Kennedy has some troublesome relatives.Ê Especially the dead ones. Perfect Circle is Sean Stewart at his spooky, funny, sad, and haunting best." -- Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

"Perfect Circle is a ghost story for grown-ups, frightening, funny, and finally redemptive. It kept me up way past my bedtime." -- Harley Jane Kozak, Dating Dead Men

I read it all in one gulp, by turns fearful and joyful for Stewart's likable loser protagonist." -- Cory Doctorow, Eastern Standard Tribe

Yes, it's true--I've written a Star Wars novel. Funny how life works out, isn't it? But... I was eleven when SW came out. I made a (sad and floppy) lightsaber by lashing a length of PVC tubing to a flashlight with black electrical tape, demonstrating in the process why I was not cut out to be an engineer.

One of the things that made this project appealing was the chance to write about the Big Questions -- truth and pain, the difficulty of right action and the Problem of Evil -- in a context that, like, half a million people, many of them kids like the one who made the lightsaber, would stop to read.

Plus for twenty years I have wanted to write a really killer swordfight scene, and I finally got my chance.