Dead is the New Black is a novel by author Marlene Perez, and is first in the series of the "Dead" novels. In this novel, Daisy Giordano, the youngest of three daughters in a psychic family narrates the story. Daisy takes readers into the lives of her family and the other people living in the town of Nightshade, California.

As the story unfolds, the readers learn about the many secrets that the family has and that the town of Nightshade has. It starts when Samantha Devereaux, head cheerleader, returns from summer vacation with a whole new look of wearing all black with pale white skin and blood red lipstick. She's also dragging a coffin-like book bag on wheels. It leaves daisy Giordano and her other classmates wondering if Samantha has undergone a transformation or if it's simply a fashion statement.

Suspicions about Samantha really start to heat up when teenage girls start winding up dead and in near death experiences. While Daisy's mom, as a psychic, helps the chief of police solve cases, the two adults are dumbfounded when a dead teenage girl's body goes missing from the morgue. To add to the mysterious circumstances, a sighting of the dead girl around town casts even more suspicion about what's going on in the town of Nightshade.

Daisy enlists her best friend, soon-to-be-boyfriend, and son of the police chief, Ryan Mendez as her sleuthing sidekicks. By the end of the novel, Ryan and Daisy discover that there is a secret society of werewolves, vampires, and banshees in Nightshade. They also find out the identity of the vampire that is sucking the souls out of the teenage girls.