Francis King

Author Information
Francis King's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    29 Books
  • First Book:
    July 1986
  • Latest Book:
    December 2013
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Book List in Order: 29 titles

  • Voices in an Empty Room

  • The Woman Who Was God

    Although her son, Jim, apparently died in an accident. Ruth St Just is doubtful. She might not have understood why he joined a religious community on the tiny African island of Ellamore, or even why he had gone abroad in the first place, but the mann...

  • Man on the Rock

  • Prodigies

    Three womendaughter, mother and auntabandon their pampered, privileged lives in The Hague of the 1860s, to set off on an epic journey to the heart of Africa. Since the daughter, Alexine, has inherited a vast fortune from her mysterious tycoon father,...

  • The Sunlight on the Garden

    This collection of short stories exemplifies Francis King's mastery of place and the remarkable emotional range that he expresses in his writings. The poignant title story is an unflinching examination of the relationship between a tough, self-willed...

  • With My Little Eye

    An elderly gentleman confronts the darker forces beneath his seemingly tranquil existence in this novel of hindsight and self-awareness. As the victim of a debilitating stroke, the man finds solace in reliving his time spent working in Japan, a eupho...

  • Pages From A Garden Note-Book

    "This is a delightful handbook on gardening, with information and advice on seasonal flowers, common diseases and pests, when and where to buy, and much more. ""Pages From A Garden Note-Book"" will appeal to green-fingered readers, and it would make ...

  • The Lord's Song

    For innumerable people in Great Britain, the second half of the forties was a period of return to homes and former occupations after the volcanic dislocations of the war. Michael, having repeatedly risked his life as an Air Force pilot, is now back i...

  • Cold Snap

    From master storyteller and psychologist, Francis King (1923-2011), comes this powerful drama of continuing antagonisms, nascent reconciliations, and obsessive love. Set in post-World War II Oxford, cousins Michael and Christine befriend a group of G...



  • The Nick of Time

    Francis King's provocative and adventurous novel looks at the havoc wrought when a young Kosovar- an illegal immigrant - finds himself in London. Mehmet leads a double life befriending and lodging with an elderly woman who suffers from MS, while at t...

  • The Dark Glasses

  • Never Again

  • The Dividing Stream

  • Act of Darkness

    Murder. A violent death in horrifying circumstances detonates the atmosphere of languor and sexual tension in the Thompson household. Francis King's disturbing novel opens in India in the 1930s, in the lush summer house of the Thompson family. Father...

  • The Action

    How far would you go to protect your sibling? Nigel Kingsley lives with his sister Martha. He loves her dearly but realises that she has been a crippling influence on his life. Hazel Saunders is Nigel's ex-lover. And she also happens to be a novelist...

  • The Custom House

    The central event of Francis King's novel, originally published in 1961, is a savage and seemingly inexplicable murder around which revolves a panorama of life in Japan that is impressive in its complexity and insight. Although The Custom House is in...

  • A Domestic Animal

  • The Firewalkers

  • Frozen Music

    The steamy squalor of modern India and a twenty-year-old mystery surrounding a young woman's death provide the setting for this brilliantly deceptive story about a genteel old man, his sensual young bride, and his brooding son. Twenty years after the...



  • A Game of Patience

    A Surrey village in the final months of the war with the occasional V1 thundering overhead . . . Against this backdrop a group of people, linked by events, play their game of patience: Hugh Thurloe, a former architect, is absent either a prisoner ...

  • The Japanese Umbrella

    Writing of Francis King's 1961 novel about contemporary Japan, The Custom House, Penelope Mortimer praised its 'ferocious perception'. That widely-acclaimed book gave a view of the country which, in its revelation of the violence and brutality always...

  • The Last of the Pleasure Gardens

    A child is born . . . Even when it comes late in life, after the rest of the family has grown up and gone away, you cannot fail to feel a flush of pleasure and hope. But when the child shows little inclination to speak and seems unable to grasp the r...

  • The One and Only

  • Punishments

  • Secret Lives

    One ordinary afternoon, Anna Clive finds her apparently neatly-ordered life unravelling when she answers the phone to an acquaintance, Ossie, who tells her that his lover has died - before begging for her help. What follows is an extraordinary glimps...

  • To the Dark Tower

    In a lonely house above Dartmouth Bay lives General Sir Hugh Weir: a solitary figure, austere to the point of vanity and as contemptuous of weakness in others as in himself. Behind him he has left a trail of broken lives - friends, lover, wife, son. ...

  • The Waves Behind the Boat

    In a remote corner of Japan an Englishwoman is drowned by a freak tidal wave. Bill, a young university lecturer, and his wife Mary are asked by the Consul to identify the body. On their arrival in the seaside village they are met - and befriended - b...

  • The Widow

    When her husband, an Indian Civil Servant, dies on his way to take up a new and important post, Christine Cornwell is left with a son and daughter, and a small pension on which to support them. She is a woman of unusual toughness and resilience, and ...

  • The Little Garden

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and...



Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Francis King has published 29 books.

Francis King does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Act of Darkness, was published in December 2013.

The first book by Francis King, Voices in an Empty Room, was published in July 1986.

No. Francis King does not write books in series.
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