Department of English

Every Version Ends in Death by Aliya Chaudhry

Aliya Chaudhry, a Penn English Major and Creative Writing Minor from the Class of 2018, has published her first novel with Haunt Publishing! Read more about the book and about Chaudhry below, and visit the Haunt website here: https://www.hauntpublishing.com/books/aliya-chaudhry/every-version-ends-...

About the Book

Laana returns to her small hometown following the death of her grandmother and becomes obsessed with the local ghost story of Carolyn Hayward. Who was she? Why does every reference or local memory of her give conflicting information about her life, work, and the circumstances of her death?

Laana’s research takes her on a whirlwind journey through her hometown’s history and reconnects her with old friends, prompting her to reflect on her own story and the ways she was and wasn’t there for those in her life.

Deliciously Gothic and fiercely feminist, Every Version Ends in Death is an anti-ghost story that forces us to reflect on grief, memory, death, hauntings, and ultimately how women’s stories are told.

About the Author

Aliya Chaudhry is a fiction writer and journalist. As a journalist, she has covered music and internet culture for publications including Alternative Press, The Daily Beast, Kerrang!, MTV, NME, Slate, Stereogum, The Verge and VICE. She has lived in the United Kingdom, Pakistan, the United States and Kenya and is currently based in London. Her short story, "The Ghost of Creek Hill," an extract of what became Every Version Ends in Death, was previously published in Haunt Publishing's May 2022 anthology When Other People Saw Us, They Saw The Dead. This is her first novel.