Guest post written by Every Hunter Is Hunted author Barry Lyga
Barry Lyga is the award-winning author of more than twenty-five books for teens and adults in a variety of genres, including the New York Times bestselling I Hunt Killers, the controversial Boy Toy, and Thanos: Titan Consumed, the origin of the greatest villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
About Every Hunter Is Hunted: From the world of Barry Lyga’s New York Times bestselling I Hunt Killers trilogy comes a thrilling adult mystery about the hunt for a monstrous serial killer. Released June 23rd 2026.
Nostalgia, man.
It’s a powerful thing. Even when we try to resist its song, the damn thing becomes an earworm. And lately I’ve been wondering: Is it possible to feel nostalgia for something you yourself created?
The notion of nostalgia is usually targeted at something we remember from our youth, something that was created and aimed at us generationally, if not individually. That Nintendo Power Glove. Christopher Reeve’s knowing smile. The opening notes of the “Imperial March.” The startup chime on your first Mac. The theme song to that sitcom you watched endlessly.
I’m no stranger to the tug and the lure of nostalgia. My office is cluttered with shelves of toys and books from my childhood. My attic is crammed with long boxes of old comic books. And my media server is stuffed with, among other things, old episodes of Super Friends and Looney Toons cartoons that, let’s face, I’ll probably never watch again.
But it’s nice having it all, right?
A while ago — forever, it sometimes seems — I wrote a trilogy and a series of prequel short stories collectively known as I Hunt Killers, the story of Jasper Dent, teen son of a notorious serial killer. It was, in the words of Daniel Kraus, my attempt to “craft the most serious (and bloodiest) crime series yet for teen readers.” The common consensus is that I succeeded. The series wrapped up in 2014.
Killers was, without a doubt, the most successful book of my career. It landed me on the New York Times bestsellers list and to this day, I still get requests to blurb “dark YA.” When I typed the last words of the last book, I felt like I was finished.
But something funny happened.
I started to miss Jasper. I started to miss his traumatized, blood-drenched world. I missed living in his skin, seeing the world through his monumentally messed-up perceptions.
It felt strange to be nostalgic for something I had created. But eventually, just like that Lightning Lad action figure I really didn’t need to buy, I had to do it. I had to go back.
The end of the Killers series saw seventeen-year-old Jasper come to a final reckoning with his monstrous father and learn the truth about his missing mother, a truth that nearly destroys him. I began to wonder what Jasper might be like today. How had the traumas of his life informed his maturation? What was he like as a twentysomething, no longer a kid? How had he changed?
Had he changed?
It was sort of a crazy idea, honestly. YA is YA and adult fiction is adult fiction, and while occasionally a successful adult series might spin off a kid-friendly version, I was unaware of any story that had done the opposite — a YA series aging up, keeping pace with its readers.
Growing up. Looking forward.
And maybe, just maybe, the occasional look back. For nostalgia, you know.
I started tentatively, poking around the edges of a new tale. Jasper Dent, isolated by choice, living the life of a shut-in, forsaking both the fame and the infamy the world bestowed upon him. Doing his level best to cope with the bespoke horror-show of his past.
In deep, intensive therapy.
An unlikely hero. Maybe not even a hero at all, any more. I wasn’t sure.
One day, not knowing what I was working on, my agent said to me, “You know, I think it’s time.” I had to laugh; I wasn’t the only one in the grip of nostalgia.
But the story couldn’t just be nostalgia. Sure, I would want to put in references and little rewards for those who’d been there from the beginning, but I knew that this had to be a new story that stood on its own. A tale for any audience that would come to it.
The book that resulted — EVERY HUNTER IS HUNTED, out on June 23 — was a forceful blend of new and old, triumph and tragedy. Everything you need is in the book, but of course if you’ve read the YA series, you’ll see textures and shadings that others will miss.
So, not nostalgia after all, even if that’s how it began in my head. An entirely new story. The start of a new world.
For those of you new to Jasper Dent and his world, I say: Welcome.
For those of you, like me, coming back for a new hit of an old pleasure, I say: Welcome back.
