The Boy Who Could See Death - Softcover

Vickers, Salley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241972469 ISBN 13: 9780241972465

Publisher: Penguin, 2016

Synopsis

From Salley Vickers, bestselling author of Miss Garnet's Angel, comes The Boy Who Could See Death, an enchanting and unsettling collection of short stories.

Eli is an ordinary boy with an extraordinary gift. It will shape the course of his whole life but, he learns the hard way, he must keep it hidden from those who know him best. Seeing death is a mixed blessing.

Eli is not the only one defying the world's expectations of him. Cousin Francesca, a charming spinster and a favourite with the children, is harbouring kleptomaniac tendencies. Sarah Palliser, living alone next to a ramshackle graveyard, is more scared of the small box under her stairs than the ghosts outside her window. Meanwhile dreamy artist Nan is nursing a growing obsession with wolves in Britain and the recently widowed Frances finds herself inventing an exotic imaginary boyfriend to pass the time.

Push through an unassuming front door on an unremarkable street or peer into the glowing fluorescent windows of an urban office block and within you'll find strange and unforgettable scenes, normal people caught in situations they do not quite comprehend...

Salley Vickers is a master of the uncanny and the unexpected. In this collection of eleven remarkable stories, she explores bereavement and betrayal, closely guarded secrets and common gossip, long-overdue endings and decidedly strange beginnings. Each story is perfectly formed: a snapshot of a total stranger, a fleeting glimpse of lives spiced with a little something extra.

About this title

Review

Effortlessly conjures surprises, brilliantly realized, pricelessly entertaining (Observer)

Tremendous, unsettling, brilliantly creepy (Independent)

A compelling and often startling collection of stories. Vickers is a storyteller of note and grace (Daily Express)

Tense and mysterious (The Lady)

From the Back Cover

'Eli was not quite seven years old when he discovered that he was different. One March day, Eli looked into the eyes of his friend Thomas Wilkes and said, 'You are going to die on Tuesday.' And when the following Tuesday, after school, Tommy Wilkes fell from his treehouse and broke his neck it was inevitable that questions were asked . . .'

In this collection of stories Salley Vickers, master of the uncanny and the unexpected, explores bereavement and betrayal, closely guarded secrets, unforeseen endings and decidedly odd beginnings. From the woman who finds solace in a haunted graveyard to the artist obsessed by a wolf roaming loose in a park, the crown prince who becomes a great playwright to the refugee whose history lies hidden in an old sofa, we enter lives in which ordinary surfaces conceal dark and often disturbing depths.

In this collection of stories Salley Vickers, master of the uncanny and the unexpected, explores bereavement and betrayal, closely guarded secrets, unforeseen endings and decidedly odd beginnings. From the woman who finds solace in a haunted graveyard to the artist obsessed by a wolf roaming loose in a park, the crown prince who becomes a great playwright to the refugee whose history lies hidden in an old sofa, we enter lives in which ordinary surfaces conceal dark and often disturbing depths.

'Tremendous, unsettling, brilliantly creepy' Independent

''Vickers's inclination is to set the cat among the pigeons. These are stories in which life is not predictable and the supernatural never far off. At every turn, it is a collection that acknowledges the power of storytelling' Observer

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About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0241972469
• ISBN 13: 9780241972465
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224