Exclusive Cover Reveal: Caleb Roehrig’s Upcoming Thriller, White Rabbit

Paste named Caleb Roehrig’s debut novel, Laste Seen Leaving, the best Young Adult book of 2016. The best one. It’s a gripping story about a teen who becomes a suspect after his girlfriend goes missing. He grapples with the fallout while simultaneously coming to terms with a secret: he’s gay.

So we’re thrilled that Roehrig’s sophomore novel, White Rabbit, will be published next spring. Here’s the scoop on the upcoming book from his publisher Feiwel & Friends:

Rufus Holt is having the worst night of his life. It begins with the reappearance of his ex-boyfriend, Sebastian—the guy who stomped his heart out like a spent cigarette. Just as Rufus is getting ready to move on, Sebastian turns up out of the blue, saying they need to “talk.” Things couldn’t get much worse, right?

But then Rufus gets a call from his sister April, begging for help. And then he and Sebastian find her, drenched in blood and holding a knife, beside the dead body of her boyfriend, Fox Whitney.

April swears she didn’t kill Fox—but Rufus knows her too well to believe she’s telling him the whole truth. April has something he needs, though, and her price is his help. Now, with no one to trust but the boy he wants to hate yet can’t stop loving, Rufus has one night to prove his sister’s innocence…or die trying.

Roehrig chatted with Paste about his first book, his second one and the beautiful cover we’re going to share with you.

“In my debut novel, Last Seen Leaving, I wrote about a missing person. Disappearances have always intrigued me, because the central question—What happened?—is so open-ended. There are limitless possible answers and, as a result, the truth always surprises.

With my sophomore effort, White Rabbit, I decided to change things up and write about a more intimate crime, with a very focused central question—Whodunit?—and still keep the puzzle just as complex and compelling. I read a lot of Agatha Christie as a teenager, and in many ways this book is my humble homage to the Queen of Crime!

I cannot get over how perfect this cover is for the novel. The action unfolds over the course of a single summer night, during which the main character and his ex-boyfriend follow the trail of a killer back and forth across Burlington, VT. The title, White Rabbit, has a double meaning; it refers to something specific within the book, but is also a metaphor for the life-and-death adventure these two guys go on as they chase after the truth.

I love the way Creative Director Rich Deas framed the image, looking back at the two boys from a ground-level perspective, where the title hides in the bloody grass. It creates such a spot-on sense of ominous tension, and really captures the feeling of the story!”

Alas, you’ll have to wait until April 2018 to pick up this book, but it’s already skyrocketed to the top of our most anticipated list for next year.