Before we even get our first taste of Lifetime’s TV adaptation of You, best-selling author (and former EW writer) Caroline Kepnes is giving us a bite of her latest novel, Providence.

Set in small-town New Hampshire, the thriller follows two childhood best friends, Jon and Chloe, who are about to open up about their developing romantic feelings and cosmic connection when Jon is kidnapped. Cut to four years later, when Chloe has all but given up any hope of ever seeing Jon again, and he returns with no memory of the time he was away. “Jon wants to pick up where he and Chloe left off… until the hor­rifying instant he realizes that he possesses strange powers that pose a grave threat to everyone he cares for. Afraid of hurting Chloe, Jon runs away, embarking on a journey for answers,” reads the publisher’s synopsis. “Meanwhile, in Providence, Rhode Island, healthy college students and townies with no connection to one another are suddenly, inexplicably dropping dead. A troubled detective prone to unexplainable hunches, Charles “Eggs” DeBenedictus suspects there’s a serial killer at work. But when he starts asking questions, Eggs is plunged into a whodunit worthy of his most outlandish obsessions.”

EW can exclusively reveal the cover for Providence, which will be released June 18, 2018, on Lenny Books, Lena Dunham’s imprint at Random House.

Image zoom Lenny/Random House

But that’s not all. Check out an exclusive excerpt from Providence below, and click here to pre-order it.

Excerpt from Providence by Caroline Kepnes

CHLOE

They can’t find Jon. When he wasn’t here, they called his mom and she said he wasn’t home sick. She came to school, his dad too and the whole school started to buzz. In that sick way, like when Kitty Miller got Leukemia. People get excited about horrible things happening when they’re not happening to them. I’m no better, I remember staring at Kitty, wondering what it was like to be her, as if she was a painting and you were allowed to gawk at it.

Kitty was loved, people made cards for her. With this situation, people are acting like it’s news, like it’s exciting, that Jon kid might be missing. The day is halfway over and he’s not at school. He’s not at home. He’s not at the movies and he’s not at the mall but did they look in all the right places? Most kids who run away would go to a packie and rip off beers, get messed up and then go to Rolling Jack’s and try out new hockey sticks. But Jon would never do that.

I told them to start in the woods, I told them how he takes a weird way to school. I didn’t mention why. It’s a hard thing, wanting to find him but also not wanting to look at a cop and be like, Jon had to take the long way through the woods because he was getting picked on at the bus stop. I think the cops get it anyway though. They’re searching, but they still haven’t found him. I wish the school day would end because when it does, I’m going to the shed.

I don’t like the way everyone assumes the news is gonna be bad, they act like he’s already dead. Like if he’s not at the movies and he’s not at the mall and he’s not in the woods, then where could he be? You can feel what it would be like if someone else disappeared. Someone like me or Carrig. Someone people love. Jon Bronson was not loved when he was here and so he’s not loved when he is gone. It’s nobody’s fault. It just is.