The Danse

Summary

From bestselling and award-winning author and acclaimed filmmaker J. Michael Stracynski comes a gripping supernatural tale of love, loss, and the evil within. Perfect for fans of Caleb Carr, Joe Hill, and Erik Larson.

The Danse unfolds across more than a century, interweaving the story of Matt Renner in the present—imprisoned for a crime he did not commit—and Irene Sullivan, who moved to Chicago in 1913 to build a new life with her sister. They are connected through the prison, which is built on the ruins of an amusement park that was destroyed in a catastrophic fire that took two hundred lives, leaving behind a legacy of rumors and occult secrets.

Like others, Matt begins to experience visions, hauntings, and warnings about a coming disaster. As the boundaries between past and present erode, Matt finds himself in what he believes is the past, pulled back by the spirit of Irene Sullivan, who is caught in a repeating cycle of her former life. As they begin to fall in love, he realizes that only he can break her out of that cycle, but doing so means losing her forever. Meanwhile, As the fire of the park becomes the fire of the prison, he along with other inmates and guards must confront the terrible past in order to prevent destruction in the present.

Part supernatural thriller, part mystery, part epic romance, The Danse is about two lost people who refuse to abandon each other, even across the boundaries of death itself. It combines the emotional sweep of a timeless romance with the tension of a psychological horror story and modern myth, whose conclusion transforms tragedy into transcendence.