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“With dynamic prose and inventive plotlines, Play, With Knives cuts through readers' expectations, bringing them to the dazzling stage of the theater and through the backstage corridors of ambition and heartbreak. Exploring the boundaries between art and reality, Horn’s debut novel follows a touring theater troupe as they struggle through financial hardships and changing relationship dynamics. This novel about artistic craftsmanship illuminates how imagination permeates every aspect of life, including our understanding of ourselves, our relationships, and our environments. Horn’s own skillfulness takes center stage; her clever use of theatrical language makes us question what it means to step in and out of character, to stay on or off script. Her story's spirited nature is further emphasized by the incorporation of multiple textual elements, such as scripts and mathematical symbols, creating a narrative as energetic as the train that carries the troupe. Witty, fun, and visionary, Play, With Knives is for readers willing to suspend their disbelief to journey through a sophisticated world of words, where imagined realities are both created and broken down.” — Lillian Liao

ARTICLES

GoODREADS | The Goodreads editors share their book picks for march

“Sharon can't wait to read this book because: Speaking of charmingly punctuated titles, here's one where the comma placement is quite important. And speaking of trains, in this book a struggling theater troupe tours the Midwest on a surreal locomotive where aspects of their plays come to life and wreak havoc. You kinda can't write a blurb that's more catnip for me than that!”

Goodreads | 17 New Cross-Genre Trends We're Spotting in 2025

“We seem to be getting derailed with novels set on locomotives…

writer’s digest | Successful Queries: Jaynie Royal and "Play, With Knives," by Jeanette Horn

“I was driving home from a dressage lesson, sweaty and covered in dirt and horsehair, when my phone buzzed at a red light. I didn’t have enough time before the light turned green to read Jaynie’s full email, but I scanned just enough of the first paragraph to see that she had accepted my novel!”

ELECTRIC LIT | 9 Twisted novels about theatrical performers

“The theater is a place of infinite possibility, where we can become anyone, go anywhere, summon any time period, replay situations, and rewrite outcomes. It’s a place where everything is progress, carrying us toward the plot’s prescribed ending. But the stage is also where people pretend to be others, where illusion reigns and you’re never quite certain whether you can walk through a doorway, whether a blade will stab or retract. It’s a place of unsurety, and a place of lies. But that’s also its magic, the magic of art: that only by lying can it reveal its truth. Talk about twisted.”

Gizmodo | 64 New Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books Beaming Down in March

“A struggling theater troupe tours the Midwest by surreal train—where aspects of their plays come to life and wreak havoc—in this inventive literary novel.”

Hasty Book List | Books Publishing This Week March 2 - 8

“Play, With Knives is a highly inventive novel—surreal and poetic, yet full of lighthearted humor—about the morality of art, the subjectivity of truth and reality, and the magic of the written word.”

Largehearted Boy | Jeanette Horn’s music playlist for her novel Play, With Knives

“Other than a few instances in my book where the troupe’s supporting actress, Chantal, listens to popular music (like Prince’s ‘Little Red Corvette’), almost all the music referenced is classical music by Russian composers. The troupe’s playwright, Fallon, frequently plays these compositions on the train, but not all the characters are on board, so to speak.”