Inspired by sibling loss, wolf spiders and faeries
Today, take a look at the inspiration behind three emotional speculative teen stories from the fabulous 2025 cohort: Running With Ghosts, by Milo Antrobus, The Pari-Pari’s Promise, by Nadia Ayesha, and Something Dead This Way Comes, by Jo Baker.
Running With Ghosts, by Milo Antrobus
When 13-year-old Lucas’s younger brother dies suddenly, his world shatters. Desperate to escape his grief and the chaos at home, Lucas turns to running – the only thing that makes him feel free again. But freedom turns to fear when his brother’s ghost appears. As the hauntings intensify and his father disappears, Lucas’s life spirals out of control. Now he must confront the bullies at school, the truth about his friendship with another boy, and the mystery of why the ghost won’t let him go.
A powerful, upper middle grade story about the courage it takes to run toward the truth. For fans of Patrick Ness, Simon James Green and Matt Goodfellow.
Milo: This book was one of many ideas that floated around my head. I wanted to write a story about a boy who is suffering from the loss of a sibling whilst trying to navigate the grief of his mum and dad too. Lucas feels he is to blame for lots of things including the breakdown his dad goes through after his brother’s death. So many young people feel as if they have to make things right for their parents when things are falling apart and it’s tough. Writing about it felt important. Added to that I wanted a ghostly element (I love ghost stories!) and decided it would be dramatic to have the ghost of the younger brother appearing. Initially this seems unsettling but later redemptive. All this alongside Lucas coming to terms with his own identity so that the book is a cauldron of swirling emotions, from the perspective of a 13 year old boy who turns to running. Running is the escape many people rely on and for Lucas it becomes his salvation.
So Lucas’s story is for anyone stuck in the whirlpool of adolescence, doubt and fear where empathy and love become the key to finding yourself.
The Pari-Pari’s Promise, by Nadia Ayesha
All seventeen-year-old Lila wants is to perfect her hunting skills and spend time with her beloved father. While out hunting, she meets the fairy Prince Hakim. Soon Prince Hakim offers a marriage proposal to Lila’s family. Although the family initially rejects the proposal, Lila’s father’s disappearance forces them to change their mind. Lila reluctantly marries Prince Hakim and moves into the castle where she meets the King and Queen, and a mysterious healer, Temperance. Lila has constant squabbles with Prince Hakim over their differing views on religion and the pari-pari’s welfare while plotting her escape to look for her father. YA fantasy for fans of Holly Black and Axie Oh.
Nadia: I was sitting with a friend and wondering what to write for a writing workshop when she recommended a book she enjoyed: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. I immediately borrowed the ebook and started reading it on Overdrive. After reading the first two chapters, I was inspired to include (for the very first time) fantasy elements in my writing piece. It was more of an experiment at that point than a solid story plot. After workshopping the piece, I was encouraged by the positive feedback from my lecturer C.J. and my supportive classmates. Although I had doubts about writing a fantasy story, I’m glad that I chose The Pari-Pari’s Promise for my manuscript in the end. The Pari-Pari’s Promise is set in Singapore and it is also about love and grief, two themes which are important to me in fiction.
Something Dead This Way Comes, by Jo Baker
Seventeen-year-old Patience is in love with her best friend Lissa. But Lissa is promised to another, bound by her cruel father’s debts. So when a wolf-spider with an unsettling yellow eye crawls from her beloved guardian’s grave and offers a way to be together, Patience accepts – with deadly consequences.
Now the snow won’t stop falling, and Patience is trapped. As her choices unravel, she must confront the monstrousness within herself. And whether she’s willing to lose the love of her life to do what’s right.
Set in a little queer family haunted by loss, Something Dead is a lyrical YA folkloric horror for fans of She Is a Haunting, The Honeys and Bitterthorn – a story of love, buried grief, and the terrible bargains we make to survive.
Jo: I started with a scene; a creepy night, when a wolf-spider with one strange yellow eye on her abdomen crawls up from a frost-covered grave by the light of the Wolf Moon. Strange and horrifying things were obviously afoot… the story continues to develop as I work on it, and I have taken a lot of inspiration from local folklore. Legend has it that the Lewes hillside is hollow, with ancient and evil things lurking in tunnels beneath.
In other ways, this story is a bit of a patchwork of other stories I’ve written; the snowy folkloric setting from an old short story I wrote before I started the MA. The creeping isolation of the snowbound forest really fit with the folkloric feel of Something Dead. Then, the main character, Patience, was taken from another book I’ve been playing with — a character who is haunted by an aspect of herself, set in Puritan Sussex - but I just couldn’t quite get that story to work, so she found her way into this novel instead. Bear and Ira, the queer parent-figures, came from a short story about a monstrous spider-being who borrowed Bear’s skin and tricked her way in from the cold. I love the feeling that nothing is wasted.
The consequences of Patience's actions literally stalk her like dead men trapped in the walls of the house. In this way I can explore emotional truths about how grief and guilt can haunt us — a little like Edgar Allen Poe’s beating heart underneath the floorboards — and what we do if we can’t keep running.