NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • If you think you know the truth behind Dr. Brenner’s experiments at Hawkins Laboratory, prepare to have your mind turned Upside Down in the first official Stranger Things novel—“the prequel story that fans have been waiting for” (Kirkus Reviews).
Before the Upside Down was uncovered, something far more dangerous was already unfolding in the shadows.
In Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds by Gwenda Bond, readers are taken back to the late 1960s, where a young woman named Terry Ives becomes entangled in a secret government experiment. Set years before the events of the hit series Stranger Things, the story explores the origins of the mysterious Hawkins Lab and the chilling forces behind it.
Drawn by curiosity and a desire for purpose, Terry volunteers for a program that promises expanded consciousness—but instead exposes her to something far more sinister. As reality begins to blur and strange visions take hold, she starts to suspect that the experiment is not about discovery, but control.
The deeper Terry goes, the more dangerous the truth becomes. Powerful figures are determined to keep their secrets hidden, no matter the cost—and those who get too close risk losing everything, including their sanity.
Tense, atmospheric, and deeply unsettling, this gripping prequel reveals the hidden past that shaped everything to come.
Some doors were never meant to be opened… yet once they are, there’s no turning back.
Review
“You’re left hungry for more, but in the best way possible, as the book manages the balancing act between interconnected prequel and standalone story.”
—Cinelinx
“Suspicious Minds is the prequel story that fans have been waiting for.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Highly recommended for those readers interested in expanding their knowledge of the Stranger Things’ universe, this book is also a dark and captivating story that will stick in the readers’ minds even if they are not fans of the franchise.”—The Unseen Library
About the Author
Gwenda Bond writes YA and children’s fiction, among other things. Her novels include the Lois Lane series (Fallout, Double Down, Triple Threat), which brings the iconic comic book character front and center, and the Cirque American series (Girl on a Wire, Girl Over Paris, Girl in the Shadows), about daredevil heroines who discover magic and mystery lurking under the big top. She and her husband, Christopher Rowe, also co-write a middle-grade series, The Supernormal Sleuthing Service. Bond’s nonfiction writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Locus, and many other publications. She has an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband and their unruly pets. There are rumors she escaped from a screwball comedy, and she might have a journalism degree because of her childhood love of Lois Lane.
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