From award-winning, best-selling author Matthew Minson comes a psychological thriller that critics are calling, "ground-breaking, terrifying and thought-provoking." "A 21st century gothic that brings to mind contemporary themes and good old-fashioned terror." "Evoking the kinds of gut-level surprise of Psycho, and the thematic thrills of Stieg Larsson's work, it is intellectual horror and suspense at its best."
Lucas Black is the world's greatest horror writer, inspiring a near mania and controversy among fans and detractors alike for his Perspectives novels featuring a popular sexy serial killer. Following the near-fatal assault by one such deranged fan, Black agrees to mentor a strange young woman writer, Felicity Keye, whom he has seen being mocked and ostracized. But sometimes good deeds don't go unpunished. As soon as Felicity arrives at his estate, she begins exhibiting odd and unsettling behavior. Despite warnings from his crazy agent, security personnel and his protective housekeeper, Black still wants to help her. Soon though, her actions take on even darker and more threatening aspects, triggering Black's buried recollections of a terrible childhood abuse. When a winter storm traps them alone in the house, a mortal challenge emerges in more ways than one.