Books on Our Radar: Doe by Rebecca Barrow
Maris Larsen is the captain of her high school cheer team, Coach’s favorite, the one everyone looks to, and then a new girl shows up and starts taking all of that away. In her dreams, a creature called Doe offers her a way to win. Maris does not fully understand what she is agreeing to. The book is written in verse across three perspectives, the cheer captain, the team itself as a collective voice, and Doe, and it is described as a story about grief, found family, and the feral nature of girlhood. Courtney Summers called it brilliant and said she was undone. Rory Power called it Rebecca at her very best. That means we can’t wait to read it, out June 23rd!
Doe
by Rebecca BarrowPublished by: Nancy Paulsen Books
on June 23, 2026
Genres: Horror, Paranormal, Thriller, Young Adult
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Thrilling crossover YA Horror perfect for fans of Krystal Sutherland and Tiffany Jackson, where the captain of a high school cheer team is caught in a bitter rivalry and turns to an ancient, supernatural creature for help, not knowing she’s just made a deal with a devil and could lose everything that matters, including her life.
Maris Larsen is the captain of the West Eaton High cheer team. She’s Coach’s favorite and the team worships her. Being on the team makes her feel special—powerful. When she’s leading the girls on the mat, Maris doesn’t have to think about her dead-end life in a dead-end town. She can forget about her depressed mother and absent father and the fact that her girlfriend doesn’t really love her. But when newcomer and Coach’s new golden girl, Genevieve Ray, joins the team, the only thing going right in Maris’s life is suddenly in jeopardy. A bitter rivalry develops between the two, but Maris is determined to take Genevieve down. The knife she needs to wield comes to Maris in her dreams.
While sleepwalking, Maris is visited by a monstrous, decaying beast in the shape of an enormous deer. Doe is an ancient, tired creature who has been wandering, trapped in her current form for decades. She cannot die, but she cannot go on living as she has. Only a girl related by blood to those who bound her in this form can free her, but those girls she loved died years ago—murdered in a fire.
But Maris is somehow linked to Doe’s beloved girls—linked by blood—and so she has the power to free Doe, to unleash her immense power. In Maris’s dreams, she and Doe form a bond, but Maris doesn’t know the creature from her dreams is real. Maris doesn’t understand the danger she’s in. She only knows Doe has promised her a way to win her battle with Genevieve. But for Maris to win, someone has to die, and the only real winner in the end will be Doe.
