Furnace — Muriel Gray

From the author of The Trickster, an unnerving tale of latterday alchemy and the horrors brooding beneath the placid surface of life in one small town in America.

Something is being born.
The darkness is its delight, deep and black and hot.
Its growth is unstoppable.
It knows who has summoned it.
It knows that its carrier is aware and afraid.
Its time is drawing near…

When long-distance truck driver Josh Spiller pulls into the small backwater town of Furnace, Virginia, he has a lot on his mind. He's been driving for thirty-six hours straight after busting up with his pregnant girlfriend; he's tired and hungry, and all he wants is to get some breakfast and rest up.

But Furnace has something special in store for Josh. Amongst the surprisingly affluent houses, the neat streets and smartly-dressed townsfolk lurks the stuff of living nightmare. A sequence of events is about to be unleashed that will test Josh to the edge of his endurance. A world of sorcery and malice is waiting to gather him in. For behind the prosperity of Furnace lie terrible secrets; and a terrifying fate in store for those who take an unwarranted interest.

Even now, as Josh searches for a place to stop, his electric-blue Peterbilt roaring through the gears, the eyes of the town are upon him.

The nightmare is beginning…

Reviews

‘Pacy, energetic, violent entertainment whose flashes of intuition and glittery neurosis give it an idosyncratic edge'
- Elizabeth Buchan, The Times

‘A deliciously creepy horror to rival premium Stephen King. Guaranteed to give you a terrifying dose of the heebee-jebees'
- Company

Praise for The Ancient:
‘Scary and unputdownable. If you're going to read a single suspenser this year make it this one' Stephen King