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Fangland
Fangland
Nov 15, 2025 7:14 PM

Author:John Marks

Fangland

Evangeline Harker, Associate Producer on television news magazine The Hour, is sent to Transylvania to scout out a possible story on a notorious Eastern European crime boss named Ion Torgu.

When she fails to return her New York office is engulfed in a wave of guilt and recrimination. Then, suddenly, months later, she's found convalescing in a Transylvanian monastery, her memory seemingly scrubbed. But then who has been sending emails in her name? And what do these crates delivered to the office contain? And why does the show's sound system appear to be infected with some strange aural virus? As a very dark Old-World atmosphere deepens in the halls of one of America's most trusted television programmes, its employees are forced to confront a threat beyond their wildest imaginings.

Reviews

A novel about a monster that evokes all the sadness, brutality and hideous glamour of human depravity. It's about the abyss, and the big hole in Lower Manhattan, and the strange, dark, funny stuff in each of us. It'll grab you and not let go until it's done with you

—— Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife

With wit and fury, John Marks describes a media culture so obsessed with image that it is powerless to resist the malevolent force of true evil. There are several monsters in Fangland, but the most dangerous ones appear every night, smiling on your television screen

—— John Twelve Hawks, author of The Traveller

Love and death, sex and violence, satiric wit and genuine horror: Fangland has it all. Much more than a modern gothic thriller, John Marks's novel is, at its dark heart, a meditation on the nature of good and evil. I was thoroughly creeped out... and enjoyed every minute of it

—— Keith Donohue, author of The Stolen Child

An unforgettable reimagining of Dracula for the 21st century. It takes a rare talent to make a seductive, perhaps even murderous female protagonist into a symbol of a strong modern woman, but John Marks has done just that. Ambitious, career-minded, yet vulnerable, Evangeline Harker is the anchor to an equally ambitious and powerful novel

—— Mitch Cullin, author of Tideland and A Slight Trick of the Mind

This inventive re-working of Bram Stoker's Dracula - written, like the original, in epistolary form - may be modern in its setting ... but at its heart, this is old-fashioned Gothic horror

—— Daily Mail

What ensues is essentially a modern-day version of Bram Stoker's Dracula, with Marks remaining true to the intricacies of the original plot. However, the highly believable characters and media-world setting bring to a familiar tale a dose of realism that makes it truly terrifying. Marks' style is easy to read, fast-paced and exciting, which means Fang Land is one of those books that you won't want to put down until the very end

—— Big Issue

A nostalgic, compelling adventure laced with black humour

—— Time Out

A compulsively readable novel about the seductiveness of storytelling... Both his characters and the electrifying manner in which Scudamore writes about Ecuador demonstrate the appeal as well as the danger of any fabulist's capacity for wonder

—— Literary Review

Brilliant ... In a hilarious portrayal of the ups and downs of being wife No.2, The Second Wives Club puts paid to the stereotype of the wicked stepmother once and for all

—— Sun

This is the perfect holiday read but would be just as entertainiing on the commute to work as accompanying you pool side

—— handbag.com

Second wives form a club to bitch about their husbands and in-laws in this compelling read

—— heat

Goodwin does an excellent job...a bleak, clever, complex and utterly compelling thriller with the grip of a pitbull.

—— YORKSHIRE POST

Beautifully written...Idiosyncratic and highly enjoyable

—— GOOD BOOK GUIDE

North London gangland life and a very nasty murder mystery, but this highly compulsive, unputdownable novel is so much more...The events are extraordinary and the finale very disturbing and the reading experience is one of best I've had for a long time.

—— SARAH BROADHURST , THE BOOKSELLER

Intense and deeply disturbing, Sweet Gum is the kind of story you can't help wishing...was strictly confined to the pages of a book. But it's not - this is real life in a modern world: a seedily contemporary world of criminals, lap-dancing, drugs, perversion, prostitution and betrayal. Written by a journalist known for her investigations into the crime underworld, Sweet Gum brilliantly captures the sense of the London streets with a scintillating nastiness that's totally addictive. Unputdownable

—— IRISH EXAMINER

Deliciously bittersweet...vividly evoked...an assured, ambitious and inventive work

—— MSLEXIA

Brisk and wry intelligence...there is a constant wit and genuine sparkle of language at work here

—— SUNDAY TRIBUNE

Her reputation as a gifted novelist will be assured...Sweet Gum balances a visceral portrait of modern evil with an ambitious work on the themes of redemption, love and justice which is both refreshing and strangely nostalgic.

—— THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
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