The Withers
By Lee Upton
2026
First Published
4.00
Average Rating
218
Number of Pages
In the aftermath of a devastating epidemic, bodies marked with eerie patterns called withers become symbols of a painful past—a past many want to forget. Riatta, one of the marked, finds herself cast out, a survivor of controversial surgeries that saved her life but cost her everything else. Seeking refuge, she recovers in the home of a surgeon who once saved her. But when she learns his wife is pregnant, a shadow falls over this fragile sanctuary. Ruthless organ traffickers roam the streets, and Riatta is drawn into a desperate fight to protect the unborn child and her friends. With what Lisa Gornick calls " the creeping terror of a Grimm' s fairy tale," The Withers is a haunting exploration of obsession, loss, loyalty, and the fragile threads of memory. In a world plagued by betrayal, can trust ever be reclaimed?
Avg Rating
4.00
Number of Ratings
10
5 STARS
30%
4 STARS
50%
3 STARS
10%
2 STARS
10%
1 STARS
0%
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Author
Lee Upton
Author · 7 books
Lee Upton is the author of thirteen books. Her short story collection The Tao of Humiliation received the BOA Short Fiction Prize. Her awards include the Lyric Poetry Award and The Writer/Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America; the Pushcart Prize; the National Poetry Series Award; and the Miami University Novella Award. Her collection of essays, Swallowing the Sea: On Writing & Ambition Boredom Purity & Secrecy, received ForeWord Review's Book of the Year Award in the category of books about writing. Her poetry has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, the New Republic, Poetry, Harvard Review, FIELD, American Poetry Review, and in numerous journals and anthologies.
