Midnight Sun

His limbs had been flung wide as if he’d been trying to embrace the night or had been crushed by it; his eyes had been wide and pale as ice, and he might have been smiling or gritting his teeth. Ben Stirling is a quiet, young boy with a morbid past. He has run away from his aunt’s house where he lives in search of the real truth about what happened to his grandfather, and his family... As he struggles to fit in both at home with his strict aunt and at school with the bullies, he eventually meets the similarly reclusive young boy, Dominic. In Dominic, Ben finds someone else who is enamoured with the world of books. Together they foster each other’s imaginations and provide the friendship they both need. In his adult years, Ben inherits the ancestral home. He and his family decide to move in... unaware of the strange stories concerning those who stray too close to the nearby woods at night. Ben is increasingly drawn to Sterling Forest — extensive pinewoods planted around the ancient oak grove where his great-grandfather was found dead so many years before. Edward Sterling had previously been exploring the icy wastes of the far north, where shamans were said to practise ancient rituals to keep the midnight sun shining over their desolate land. Found naked and snowblind in this distant wilderness, he had been returned to his wife... but died soon afterwards. Now, three generations later, Ben unwittingly sets loose an awesome power, and soon the entire countryside falls into the grip of ice and blizzards. He is soon ready for what he’d been awaiting his whole life... Praise for Ramsey Campbell: “Campbell’s newest and finest: a masterpiece of quiet, visionary horror … majestic … icy, monumental, inexorable…directly in the tradition of Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen and equal to their very best.” -Kirkus Reviews “Campbell’s beautifully poetic horror novel…paints a frightening portrait of a world tilting into chaos and the price that must be paid to save it…absorbing…demonstrates the author’s mastery of the horror genre.” - Publishers Weekly “Ramsey Campbell has succeeded more brilliantly than any other writer in bringing the supernatural tale up to date without sacrificing the literary standards that early masters made an indelible part of the tradition.” - Jack Sullivan, Editor of The Penguin Encyclopaedia of Horror and the Supernatural “One of the finest exponents of the classic British ghost story.” - Daily Telegraph “Campbell is the rightful tenant of M.R. James country, the genuine badlands of the human psyche.” - Guardian “A visionary supernatural tale by the finest writer working in horror today.” - Interzone “A masterpiece which is both delicate and powerful.” - Peter Straub “Midnight Sun has re-established the horror novel as a literary art form.” - Fear Ramsey Campbell was born in 1946 in Liverpool, Merseyside, where his mother supported him in his writing and creative pursuits. Growing up in post-war Liverpool provided the perfect backdrop for his taste for the more macabre literature. He’s lived there his whole life and over the years has built up a truly prolific portfolio of work that has deservedly cemented him as a leading figure within the genre. His other works with Venture include The Parasite and Demons by Daylight. Read more