by Writing Workshops Staff
59 minutes ago
When Sophia Huneycutt saw the finished cover of her debut novel for the first time, she wept. “Not going to lie: I cried!” she told Debutiful. A final cover, she explained, meant the novel had stopped being a file on her laptop and become an actual book: one she could hold, share, and be terrified about in equal measure.
On October 6, 2026, that book arrives. The House Built on Alligator Bones publishes from Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and it is available to preorder now.
The premise alone is worth the price of admission: Dartrine Beaumont believes her mother’s death has left her without family, until she discovers wealthy relatives on Amelia Island and travels south to claim a stake in the strangest inheritance imaginable: an alligator farming empire. What waits for her at Greer House is an heir apparent who resents her, a grandmother convinced the family is cursed, and a legend about a monstrous alligator hunted down generations ago that has never stopped hunting back. Dart has to decide whether to accept the violence in her bloodline or break it.
A Writer Long in the Making
Sophia was born and raised in Lakeland, Florida, and the state runs through her work like groundwater. Her short fiction won the Porch Prize, judged by Kevin Wilson, and has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, STORY, The Greensboro Review, and Nashville Review. She holds a BA in English literature from Davidson College and an MFA in creative writing from Ohio State University, and she has received support from the de Groot Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Ohio Arts Council. She is a Tin House alumna. Last year, she was named one of ten 2025 Fiction Fellows in the Poets & Writers Get the Word Out Publicity Incubator.
Back in 2020, well before the MFA and the book deal, Sophia spent a season working with Kelly Luce on a short story critique and MFA application prep — a brief stop on a road she was already well down.
The Blurbs Are Something Else
It is rare for a debut to arrive carrying this much weight behind it. New York Times bestselling author Randy Wayne White praised the novel as “written with intelligence, heart, and a rare command of language.” Ashley Winstead, national bestselling author of This Book Will Bury Me, described it as “a modern Heart of Darkness, set in a brutal, gory version of Florida.”
“As quirky, shady, and diabolically entertaining as the state in which it’s set.”
— Jennifer Thorne, USA Today bestselling author of Diavola
The trade reviews agree. Library Journal called it “captivating, eerie, and authentic,” recommending it to readers of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects. Publishers Weekly summed the debut up in two words: “strikingly original.” Reactor found it “intensely atmospheric.” LaTanya McQueen, Bailey Seybolt, and Ande Pliego have all lent their names to it as well, each landing on the same idea from a different angle, a Southern Gothic about family legacy, and what it costs to refuse one.
A Most Anticipated Debut of 2026
In June, Debutiful named The House Built on Alligator Bones to The Most Anticipated Debut Books of 2026, Part 2, a list assembled from a long list of roughly 180 titles, and one of the most closely watched roundups in debut publishing. Editor Adam Vitcavage’s verdict: readers who love a house that haunts will find here “the swampy, atmospheric horror vibe they’ve been waiting for.” The novel also landed on most-anticipated lists from Reactor, the Chicago Review of Books, and the Books in the Freezer podcast.
Preorder The House Built on Alligator Bones
Preorders matter enormously for a debut — they shape print runs, bookseller attention, and first-week visibility. If this book sounds like yours, order it now and it will arrive on publication day, October 6, 2026.
Congratulations, Sophia. We are honored to have been a small part of the journey, and we cannot wait to see where the road goes next.
Every writer’s path is their own, but very few of them are walked alone. If you are working toward a first book, a first publication, or simply a better draft than the one you have now, we would love to be one of the stops along your way. Our online creative writing workshops pair you with working authors and editors in small, generous classes built for real feedback and real revision. Come find the class — and the community — that meets you where you are.
