Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Owen Wheeler fully believes he’s chasing history. He leads a crew on a Michigan DNR research vessel to dive into the wreck of the Keuka, once a floating speakeasy long lost in the cold waters of Lake Superior.
What they bring back is much, much stranger.
Using fragmented footage, news clippings, journal entries, and Owen’s testimony from a psychiatric facility, two timelines emerge: The expedition, and the haunted present. And as the record fractures, so does Owen’s grip on reality.
The locals talk of an old superstition, the six signs that happens before someone loses their mind. Did they raise a long buried secret to the surface, or are Owen’s memories pulling into the murky waters of madness?
On Lake Superior, some wrecks never rest.
Why we’re excited about this book:
A.C. Hessenauer is ready to take horror readers into deep, cold waters. The author of Dread House, Possession, Jumpers, Mount Snow, Manimal, and Carl, Hessenauer is also the editor of the anthology A Chronicle of Horrors. With her latest, Hessenauer uses the epistolary form to guide readers through a deep dive into madness and nightmarish eco-horror. Clay McLeod Chapman (What Kind of Mother) says: “Beware: If you read A.C. Hessenauer’s Going to the Six too fast, diving in headfirst like I did, you’ll end up with the bends by the time you return to the surface. Never has a novel bubbled over in the bloodstream quite like this book, a haunted document that’s equal parts gelatinous eco horror and a waterlogged Blair Witch.”, and Laurel Hightower (Silent Key) calls Going to the Six “A dark, engaging and compulsively readable epistolary tale to increase your fear of water ten-fold.” Viggy Parr Hampton (The Rotting Room) says: “Going to the Six is a claustrophobic, itchy story told in a compulsively readable found-footage style. The combination of shipwrecks, eco-horror, and looming insanity is addictive. Do yourself a favor: open up this book and let the story in.“
Releasing from Cemetery Dance 16 June 2026, Going to the Six by A.C. Hessenauer is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA