Home
/
Fiction
/
Frightening
Frightening
Jan 14, 2026 11:17 AM

Author:Christopher Fowler

Frightening

Christopher Fowler’s latest collection contains fourteen stories in new formats that have never been published in print collections, including a play, two SF tales, a historical-supernatural story, some that began life inside other novels, only to be cut or rewritten, and morphed into tales like ‘The Scent Of Roses’, together with several that have not seen the light of day in any form. Now they all have finally found their place in Frightening…

Reviews

Pure pleasure . . . short sharp shocks delivered with astonishing precision and dark delight. Christopher Fowler is a modern master of the form.

—— JAKE ARNOTT

It’s been a long time since I read anything so compelling and satisfying. At times, incredibly funny, at others, heartrending

—— Sarah Winman, author of When God Was a Rabbit

the most beautifully written and crafted novel ... heartbreaking

—— Santa Montefiore

By turns savvy, witty and achingly sad . . . This is a novelist at the top of his game.

—— The Mail on Sunday

I ran through the whole range of human emotions while reading this brilliant novel. It's a masterpiece.

—— Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love

Screamingly funny one minute and heartbreaking the next.

—— Daily Express

A special read

—— BBC Radio 4 Front Row

Boyne creates lightness out of doom, humour out of desperately sad situations, creating a compelling page-turner… a terrific read.

—— The Press Association

An epic novel…. Worthy of the great master of the Irish comic novel, Flann O’Brien. The Heart’s Invisible Furies proves that John is not just one of Ireland’s best living novelists but also one of the best novelists of Ireland.

—— Sunday Express

Written with verve, humour and heart…at its core, The Heart’s Invisible Furies aspires to be not just the tale of Cyril Avery, a man buffeted by coincidence and circumstance, but the story of Ireland itself

—— Irish Times

Compulsively readable…hard to put down

—— Irish Independent

John Boyne is best known for his children’s novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. His new novel shows he can write movingly for adults as well… the cast is enormous yet at no point do we lose interest in Cyril.

—— The Sunday Times

The Heart’s Invisible Furies, by John Boyne, is like an Irish World According to Garp, by which I mean tender, dark, hilarious, heartbreaking—I loved it'

—— Vogue

It is laugh-out-loud funny, tragic, laceratingly sharp, and full of complex and brilliantly evoked characters...page-turning, hilarious, heart-rending and hopeful. Go read it.

—— Times Literary Supplement

Dickensian sweep, characterisation and humour

—— Daily Mail

For character, plot and psychological depth, Boyne’s novel is unsurpassed this year

—— Sunday Express

[A] subtly chilling story. . . leaves the reader with an uncomfortable sense of trepidation

—— Pure M Magazine

Brilliant and disturbing...The challenge of making Irish Gothic contemporary has just been met superbly

—— Jarlath Killeen, Irish Times Book Club

A powerful story about friendship and forgiveness, fans of Dorothy Koomson’s novels will enjoy the clever twists and unexpected turns, which keep the reader enthralled

—— Candis

A powerful book … it’s always good to be thinking of a book long after you put it down

—— Woman’s Way (Ireland)

A beautiful and clever novel

—— The Culture Trip

Thematically taut and compulsively paced.

—— Edmund Gordon , Sunday Times

A very good novel of anxiety, embarrassment and also, somehow, the depths of Englishness.

—— Evening Standard

Marvellous, original and intelligent. Kunzru writes like a master storyteller... There's simply nothing [he] couldn't manage in prose

—— Literary Review

Publisher's description. Electrifying, subversive and wildly original, White Tears is a ghost story and a love story, a story about lost innocence and historical guilt. This unmissable novel penetrates the heart of a nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge and exploitation, and holding a mirror up to the true nature of America today.

—— Penguin

Compulsively readable, masterly - a tour de force

—— Rachel Kushner

Riveting from the very first page, I was completely addicted... A literary thriller and a timely, unsparing excavation of the very real spectre of race in America's past and present. White Tears is proof that Kunzru is one of the finest novelists of his generation...

—— Mirza Waheed

Hari Kunzru is an incredibly versatile writer who is alert to the inequalities in the world... Powerful and complex, White Tears is a novel about abuses of wealth and power. Brilliantly orchestrated, unforgettable and devastating

—— Bernardine Evaristo

Hari Kunzru is one of our most important novelists

—— Independent on Sunday

Kunzru's engagingly wired prose and agile plotting sweep all before them

—— New Yorker

Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton shouldn't work, but its frail texture was a triumph of tenderness, and sent me back to her excellent Olive Kitteridge

—— Cressida Connolly , The Spectator

A rich account of a relationship between mother and daughter, the frailty of memory and the power of healing

—— Mark Damazer , New Statesman

This physically slight book packs an unexpected emotional punch

—— Simon Heffer , Daily Telegraph

A novel offering more hope

—— Daisy Goodwin , Daily Mail

My Name Is Lucy Barton intrigues and pierces with its evocative, skin-peeling back remembrances of growing up dirt-poor.

—— Ann Treneman , The Times

Masterly

—— Anna Murphy
Comments
Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.zzdbook.com All Rights Reserved