What is the title of your latest release?
DECOMPOSITION BOOK
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A lonely college student finds the dead body of a lost hiker in the woods behind her house and decides to befriend the corpse instead of calling the police.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I looked for news stories of hikers getting very lost and took note of where these disappearances happened most often. Then I positioned Savannah’s house at a plausible walking distance through the woods.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
Definitely! Savannah is my precious baby. I support her rights and her wrongs. And Ava’s kind of a love letter to my wife, so I’d go one step further and sign a contract to hang out with her forever.
What are three words that describe your hero?
Funny, Lonely, Survivor
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I learned how to edit all the way to my limits. I’d written four books before writing this one, but I’d never edited something to the point of being publishable, so with this one I think I learned how far I can currently go. I plan to get better and more efficient with every book though!
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I edit as I draft, but I also won’t even start writing until I have a whole draft laid out and edited once over in my head.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
There’s a ricotta cheesecake at this Italian place in downtown Manhattan called Pepolino. It’s like if whipped cream and cheesecake had a baby and I love that motherfucker. All of their food is amazing. My wife and I go anytime something really good or really bad happens in our lives.
Describe your writing space/office!
I write either in bed or on the couch looking like an absolute gremlin. Usually my cat, Stella, helps me out by making biscuits on my keyboard.
Who is an author you admire?
Sylvia Plath
Is there a book that changed your life?
There are too many books that have changed my life. I don’t think you guys have room for all of them, but to name a few EVERYTHING IS FINE by Ann Dee Ellis, LIFE AS WE KNEW IT by Susan Beth Pfeffer, BUNNY by Mona Awad, THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins, HATCHET by Gary Paulsen, THE UNABRIDGED JOURNALS OF SYLVIA PLATH… Mostly, the books that have made the most impact are books that I read young while I was very much still shaping myself as a writer.
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published). Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
My agent, Julie Flanagan, and I had a call scheduled for a Wednesday morning, the day before I was supposed to have an introductory call with my soon to be editor, Leah Mol. All I expected from my call with Julie was a little pep talk for my call with Leah. When I picked up the phone, Julie sounded surprised at something. I panicked. She said it was good, that there was a pre-empt on the table, that I had twenty-four hours to accept, that she would try and stall. I sank into a state of shock immediately and didn’t hear anything after the word pre-empt. I know there was a full hour conversation after that, but all I heard was ‘book deal’. Book deal, book deal, book deal… In the fourteen years I had been writing books, I had somehow managed to prepare myself mentally for everything but that; I didn’t know how to accept it as true. I still don’t.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
Sapphic Horror
What’s your favorite movie?
Black Swan. I find it relatable.
What is your favorite season?
Summer, the hotter the better.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I sit at home and hang out with my wife and cats and a bottle of wine and a bong and we order takeout and watch trash tv.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
If you’re thinking about reading this book, then definitely Yellowjackets. I also really loved Sky Daddy by Kate Folk. Linda is my new patron saint.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Mexican. I gotta support my own ancestors!
What do you do when you have free time?
I bed rot like nobody’s business.
What can readers expect from you next?
I’m writing a capitalism related horror about a slow apocalypse caused by too many people dying at work. I saw a meme the other week requesting a show that was like The Pitt, but instead of a hospital, it’s a night shift at a Waffle House. Let’s just say I have great news for that meme-maker.
A Novel
An emotional, electrifying, and darkly hilarious debut about a woman who finds a dead body and can’t give up its ghost, for fans of Mona Awad, Yellowjackets, and weird girl fiction.
Spiraling from a disastrous falling—out with her best friend, Savannah retreats to her parents’ empty lake house in upstate New York to tend her wounds. Isolated and reeling from rejection, she spends her days in a fog, drinking and overthinking in equal worrisome measure. Until she wakes up one morning in the woods behind the house—next to a dead body.
Instead of calling the police, Savannah reads the journal she finds nearby, reliving the last desperate months of this woman’s life lost in the wilderness, fighting for survival. Ava, as it turns out, is more than just a cold, lonely corpse. She was funny. She was smart. And Savannah has finally found someone she can talk to…
As she pushes deeper into Ava’s harrowing story, Savannah notices a change, a shift in her reality. Each page brings her closer to the Ava from the journal…and the ghost before her now. Before long, Savannah feels something for Ava she hasn’t felt for anyone else—and there’s a good chance letting go would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Is Savannah finally losing her grip? Or has she found the friend she’s needed all along?
Humor | LGBTQ [ Hanover Square Press, On Sale: May 19, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781335001894 / eISBN: 9780369775306 ]
Sara van Os is a Mexican-American decomposition nerd who lives in Harlem with her wife and two cats. She has a bachelor’s degree from NYU in English and German and a minor in Clarinet Performance, because she loves a good side quest. Since college, she has been working in hospitality as everyone’s favorite manager and lives to gather stories of weird happenings at work. Decomposition Book is her debut novel.
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