In the Night Room Peter Straub 9780007184422

A dazzling new chilller from the bestselling author of KOKO and LOST BOY LOST GIRL.

Award-winning children's book author Willy Patrick seems to be having a breakdown. Figures from her past are coming to visit her, most frighteningly her dead daughter, Holly, who was murdered together with Willy's first husband. Then Willy discovers her mysterious fiance may well have been responsible for the deaths of her husband and daughter.

After fleeing the house they are renovating she runs into Tim Underhill, also an author haunted by the deaths of loved ones. In fact, his long-deceased nine-year-old sister recently appeared to him on the way to his favourite diner, and he's been getting strange emails from people in his home town - none of whom are still alive. But what really spooks him is the realization that Willy seems to be the heroine of the book he is currently working on, in precisely the mortal peril he has invented for her...

Born in Milwaukee, Peter Straub is the author of sixteen novels, which have been translated into more than twenty languages. He has won the British Fantasy Award, two Bram Stoker awards and two World Fantasy awards. His most recent publications are a collection of short stories, MAGIC TERROR, the acclaimed novel LOST BOY LOST GIRL and BLACK HOUSE, the international bestselling novel that he co-wrote with Stephen King.

PRAISE FOR PETER STRAUB:
'Straub is a master at creating fear out of everyday life.'
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

'No one is better than Straub at having whole communities rocked by the forces of wickedness.'
OBSERVER

PRAISE FOR IN THE NIGHT ROOM:
'Master of the macabre Straub sits fear on your shoulder in a tale which is blacker than the night.' NORTHERN ECHO

'Unforgettable' GUARDIAN

PRAISE FOR LOST BOY LOST GIRL:
'Lost Boy Lost Girl is intense and yet measured; serious and melancholy at times, but also humorous. Straub's prose has a tart clarity that allows him to delineate the muddiness of life with great economy and richness. He has a superb ear for dialogue, both spoken and silent. He is adept, too, with ambiguity; the emotional blur of the real world, of our tentative and ambivalent responses to each other and the things we do. These qualities create an atmosphere that lingers like the novel's own ghost, and Straub achieves this invisibly, in the background. He doesn't insist you notice how intelligent and subtle the novel is, and you don't: you merely appreciate how good a time you're having, and that you don't want it to stop.' Michael Marshall, GUARDIAN

'Stephen King's mate and co-author puts the monster master into the shade. This'll have you anxiously contemplating the shadows' MIRROR

'Mr Straub's latest is an unusually taut, dynamic, spooky display of horror expertise, and its story is deftly told.' NEW YORK TIMES