» Shortlisted for the Ignotus and the Nocte Novel Awards
For those of you who long for truly adult horror fiction. For those of you who know that sorcery is not the stuff of magic wands, but rather of blood rituals. For all of you: This is your home. Welcome to the City.
While they sleep, humans make their way to the Kingdom of Mab, where dreams are made, forging their nightmares from their deepest, darkest desires and fears. Once they have lived out their most depraved, shameful fantasies, they wake up, leaving their more sinister side behind them.
But the death of Queen Mab at the hands of one sleeper has placed the Kingdom in peril, setting in motion a series of events no one could have foreseen. Or could they? While the humans have lost the capacity to set free their nightmares, far from their everyday selves, four of the Lords of the Kingdom – Beast, Darkness, Labyrinth and Hunter – must decide who among them shall descend to the City. They must hunt down the Queen’s killer and so restore the balance between the two worlds before dreadful, dark forces are unleashed, transforming the world as we know it beyond all recognition.
Terror is that which makes us flee in a bid to escape. Horror is that which makes us freeze; wishing none of this had ever happened. You can run from terror, but horror penetrates your very core, taking root for ever more.