A Teen Finds Herself Trapped In a Lavish Hotel In This Excerpt From Midnight at the Houdini

Lots of things can happen when the clock strikes midnight. Carriages turn back into pumpkins. Kisses unbestowed go wanting. Dark curses take effect. And escape is forbidden. Such dark consequences await in Midnight at the Houdini, Deliah S. Dawson’s upcoming magical YA thriller that tells the story of a quiet Las Vegas teen who must uncover the mysterious secrets of a magical hotel before she becomes trapped inside its walls—permanently. 

The story follows Anna who finds herself seeking shelter from a terrible storm after she unexpectedly runs away from her older sister’s wedding reception. Ducking into a nearby hotel she’s never seen before called the Houdini, she’s immediately impressed by its lush decor and strangely magical feel. She even meets a handsome boy there, who wants to help her find her way back to her family. There’s just one problem: This hotel has a dark secret, and those who enter it rarely leave. 

Described as perfect for fans of Caraval and The Starless Sea, Midnight at the Houdini is a surreal adventure about magic, self-discovery, and more.

Here’s how the publisher describes the story. 

Life has gone according to plan for Anna—she stays in the background, letting her sister, Emily, shine in the spotlight. But on Emily’s wedding night, Anna learns that her sister is moving away, abandoning her—and all their shared dreams. Devastated, Anna leaves the reception in the middle of a raging storm, taking shelter in a hotel she’s never seen before: the Houdini.

The Houdini is a hotel unlike any other, with sumptuous velvet couches, marble tiled floors, secret restaurants, winding passageways, and an undercurrent of magic in the air. And when Anna meets Max, who has lived his entire life inside its walls, she’s captivated. For the first time in her life, Anna is center stage, in a place that anticipates her every desire, with a boy who only has eyes for her.

But there’s a terrifying secret hidden in the Houdini. When the clock strikes midnight, Anna will be trapped there forever unless she can find a way to break free from its dreamlike magic. But will she be able to do it if it means leaving Max behind?

Midnight at the Houdini won’t hit shelves until September 5, 2023, but we’re excited to be able to give you an early at this magical thriller right now. 

After an eternity of upward groaning, the elevator shudders to a halt. Anna tucks her ruined hair behind her ears and puts on the smile she’s perfected for when she needs to charm adults. The door laboriously slides open, and she’s facing another hallway. This one is nothing like the basement, thank goodness. The carpet, patterned in shades of burgundy and amber, is rich and deep, and her toes sink in when she steps onto it. The walls are more polished wood with wainscoting, glowing in the warm orange flicker of the strange lights that are everywhere. Doors march neatly down the hallway, each with a small brass plaque and a number beginning with a six. At first, it seems like there are hundreds of doors, but it must be some kind of illusion, maybe something cleverly done with mirrors. Anna saw this hotel from the outside, and there’s no way it can be that big. When she counts, there are only fourteen doors, seven down each side. Ahead, on her left, one of the doors is partially open, and she hears a soft thump and someone mutter, “Ah, hell.”

Anna stops. Looks up and down the hall. Looks back at the elevator, which is slowly rattling shut. That voice sounded nothing like the angry man downstairs. She tiptoes to the open door, the carpet swallowing the sound of her footsteps. The door’s small brass plaque, polished to a shine, says, simply, Library. The hallway smells of comfortable age, lemon polish, rose perfume, and, faintly, old cigars. But here, right in front of the door, Anna smells one of her very favorite things.

Books.

She peeks in but can’t see much through the barely open door. Just the tiniest sliver of a bookshelf—a good bookshelf. A tall bookshelf. A Beauty and the Beast bookshelf. She puts a hand on the door and pushes it, calling, for what feels like the hundredth time, “Hello?”

She expected the door to catch on the thick carpet, to be as balky and recalcitrant as the elevator, but this one swings open like it was freshly oiled. Anna’s senses are dominated by the bookshelf, which stretches nearly twice as high as the ceiling in the hallway. The shelves are yet more polished wood, and the books nestled along them range from esoteric leather tomes with gold-stamped spines to cozy families of encyclopedias to yellowed paperbacks with audaciously pulpy titles. A tall ladder leans against the shelves, its black wheels clinging to an iron railing so it can zoom back and forth. A record player with a speaker shaped like a golden lily plays a song dominated by slinky, sleepy, bluesy saxophone. The smell of old books and leather is overpowering, as if the word “tome” had been turned into a Yankee Candle and someone lit a thousand of them, and it is glorious.

When she was little, Anna loved libraries. She dreamed of having one like this when she was grown. But around age ten, she put that sort of silly dream behind her and started focusing on reality, on forging her path instead of daydreaming. Her private school library was a sleek, modern place, with not even one wooden card catalog. She’d almost forgotten that such places existed. As she smells the room and relishes the glint of lamplight on gilt, she feels that old love stir like a cat that’s been asleep too long.

“Hello?” she says again, and only then does she notice the figure.

It’s a boy—a guy her age, or maybe a little older. He’s standing on another ladder, high up but on his way down, ostensibly to collect the fallen novel that lies open on the carpet below. He looks like he’s stepped out of another time, with baggy corduroys, a white button-down rolled perfectly at the elbows, and a tweed vest with two chains hooked on a buttonhole and disappearing into a pocket. His hair curls down to his collar and is exactly the color of a well-pulled espresso under the crema. Her eyes are drawn to his two-toned oxfords as he hops lightly to the floor, smoothly kneeling for the book and gracefully swooping to stand, already opening it and running a finger along the opening paragraph, oblivious to her entrance.

“Hello?”

Anna hates saying it again, hates repeating herself three times, but he hasn’t yet looked at her, and she’s beginning to feel like a creeper, standing here as he grins at the book.

The boy’s eyes flick up to hers and fly open wide, as if he’s seen a ghost. His mouth falls open, but no sound comes out. The book tumbles out of his hands to land on the floor with a soft thump.

“Okay,” Anna says, feeling unusually self-conscious. “Sorry to interrupt, but could you please tell me how the elevator works so I can leave you and that book alone for some private time?”

The boy’s attitude changes so fast it’s comical. It’s like he’s rebooting. His mouth snaps shut, he shakes his head, and his eyes focus on her, fierce and unblinking, blue as a rooftop pool.

“What did you just say?”

Anna shoves her hands in her pockets and feels deeply awkward being stared at this aggressively while wearing something as ridiculous as an ancient casino gift shop muumuu.

“I said something about being sorry to interrupt you but needing help with the elevator? Or maybe the emergency stairs? My dad should be waiting for me in the lobby by now, but this place has a steep learning curve. Part of the fun, I guess.” He’s still staring, so she does jazz hands and shrugs and mutters, “Magic! All that.”

The boy is across the room in a heartbeat, close enough to touch. She can see the stubble on his jaw, the little flecks in his blue eyes.

“Holy mackerel, are you real?” he asks.

Midnight at the Houdini will be released on September 5, but you can pre-order it right now. 

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB