About The Saw Mouth

For fans of The Last Bookstore on Earth and Compound Fracture, a heart-pounding rural YA horror novel following a nonbinary teen who survives a near-apocalypse, only to be hunted by a mysterious monster whose very existence is entwined with their own. This story is for anyone haunted by the sins of past generations—and fighting to right them.

When Cedar was a child, fragmented, tortured souls woke up in the world’s most complex machines, destroying them and pushing technology back decades. A fall. The Fall, some said, and they called it Autumn.

Ten years later, following a family tragedy, Cedar moves to the nowhere town of Sawblade Lake only to find something hunting them. A long, bent shadow that reeks like rot and has the mouth of a deep crevice. It’s after Cedar, and it’s willing to go to any lengths to break them, including preying on Cedar’s new queer family.

The closer it circles, the more it seems to weave through Cedar’s whole life. It might stretch back to their mother’s gruesome, inexplicable death, to the murk of their missing family, to the house they grew up in. Back and back and back to the first day of Autumn.

Cedar thought they understood how their world had changed, but they’re far from dredging the bottom.

EXTRAS

STARRED REVIEW

“A truly stellar example of the best that horror can be…”

School Library Journal, March 2026

STARRED REVIEW

“Plett masterfully combines monster horror and the messy machinations of found family in a story that will leave any reader eager for their next title.”

BOOKLIST, March 2026

“A brilliant storyteller, Plett imagines a spellbinding world of awakened machines and human resilience. Powerful, poetic, haunting.”

— Darcie Little Badger, Locus and Lodestar Award-winning author of Sheine Lende and A Snake Falls to Earth

“Raw, unsettling, and new-bruise tender, The Saw Mouth completely captured me. Plett’s horror debut is a gift to readers looking for the bright heart in the dark.”

— Rory Power, New York Times bestselling author of Wilder Girls, Burn Our Bodies Down, and Kill Creatures

“The Saw Mouth balances thrilling, sinister horror with moments of the softest tenderness and love. It’s a story of finding shelter in people, when darkness tries its best to inhabit you.”

— Tanya Boteju, author of Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens

“Grimy, brutal, and brilliant, with a painfully vivid queer cast and a setting so well constructed you can smell the smoke.”

— Matteo L. Cerilli, author of Lockjaw