A Christmas Ghost Story

Description

From the acclaimed author of Anno Dracula, the perfect gift for those who love the dark fantastic imaginations of Neil Gaiman and T. Kingfisher, this is a nightmarish tale of a haunted Christmas set deep in the British countryside not too long ago. Cosy traditions are made twisted and terrifying as a mother and son grapple with their painful past.

Lynda and her teenage son Rust prepare for Christmas, hanging fairy lights and making decorations. The first door of the advent calendar is opened, but the chocolate inside tastes off. Rust receives his first Christmas card, it’s unsigned and the message is aggressive rather than festive. 

The cards keep coming, one each day and each more sinister than the last, and a frightened Lynda recalls a seasonal TV show from her childhood that featured similar happenings, and while she remembers it vividly, there is no evidence that it was ever broadcast… 

As their Christmas cheer is gradually poisoned, with real dead robins replacing plastic ones, the turkey rotting in the freezer and Rust becoming increasingly unwell, Lynda begins to wonder if her childhood Christmases were in fact as joy filled as she remembers…

A terrifying tale of seasonal dread from a master of horror.Praise for Kim Newman:
“An English Ghost Story is a terrific read!”
William Friedkin

“Compulsory reading… Glorious” 
Neil Gaiman

“Immersive, claustrophobic and utterly wonderful”
M.R. Carey, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl With All the Gifts

“Kim Newman gets inside your head like pollen off a field of wildflowers; the pleasant idyllic turns full of suffocating dread. Thoroughly enjoyable, master storytelling.”
Lauren Beukes, bestselling author of The Shining Girls.

“A masterful and often disturbing updating of the traditional haunted house story given a modern twist by an author who continues to push the limits of every genre he works in.”
Stephen Jones

“All the elements of a classic spook story… beautifully written”
SFX

“With An English Ghost Story, Kim Newman shows that he can’t help himself when he tackles a genre, he reinvents it. This time it’s the haunted house novel, given a radical makeover that both references the past and looks to the future…suffice it to say that tales of terrifying dwellings will never be the same again.”
The IndependentKim Newman is a popular and respected author and movie critic, known for his acclaimed alternate-history series, Anno Dracula. He writes regularly for Empire magazine and contributes to The Guardian, The Times, Time Out and others. He makes frequent appearances on radio and TV, and is the chief writer of the BBC TV series Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema. He has won the Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, British Fantasy and British Science Fiction Awards and been nominated for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and James Herbert Awards. He lives in London.CN

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