Sign Here

Peyote "Pey" Trip has a decent job in the deals department on the fifth floor of Hell — never mind that the pens never work, the coffee machine has been broken for a century, and the only drink on offer is Jägermeister. Pey has a plan, and all he needs to finally earn a transfer upstairs is one more soul: a member of the wealthy Harrison family to sign on the dotted line, completing a set generations in the making.

When the Harrisons decamp to their lake house for the summer — teenage daughter Mickey and her magnetic, secretive new friend Ruth in tow — the opportunity Pey has waited a thousand years for is suddenly within reach. With the help of his charismatic colleague Calamity, he sets his scheme in motion. But nothing is quite as it seems, on Earth or below it, and as the family's buried secrets rise to the surface, everyone is forced to reckon with the cost of the choices they've made.

Claudia Lux's darkly funny, genuinely poignant debut braids workplace satire, family drama and slow-building dread into a twisty, surprising novel about guilt, love and what we're willing to trade away.