Ramsey Campbell Invites Readers to Embrace the Dark in 2027 (book news).

Veteran horror writer Ramsey Campbell will be opening another door marked “Absolutely Do Not Enter” in 2027, when Flame Tree Press publishes his new novel, Embrace the Dark.

Don D’Auria of Flame Tree Press has acquired World English rights to the novel from Campbell’s agent, John Jarrold. It continues an association that has made Flame Tree Campbell’s principal publisher in Britain and the United States for nearly a decade. When you find a publisher willing to follow you repeatedly into the darkest corners of the human mind, it seems only polite to keep supplying the torches.

Embrace the Dark follows Ryan Purchiss, a crime novelist busy promoting his latest book when he is approached to investigate an occult society known as the Enfolders. Purchiss is desperate for material for his next novel, so he infiltrates the organisation. This is why sensible writers conduct their research through Google, old newspaper cuttings and occasionally asking an ex-policeman awkward questions over lunch.

The Enfolders prove considerably more disturbing and powerful than Purchiss had been led to believe. He begins to wonder how many of the people around him belong to the cult, how far its influence extends and whether exposing it will destroy his life, his mind or both. The real horror, of course, may be discovering that the cult has already pre-ordered his next book and expects its members to be portrayed sympathetically.

It is an enticingly Campbellian premise, taking an ordinary professional anxiety and quietly allowing something ancient and unspeakable to crawl inside it. A crime writer searching for a subject finds one that may be searching for him. Here at SFcrowsnest, we consider this an excellent argument for recycling old plots rather than joining occult societies in pursuit of authenticity.

Flame Tree has published Campbell’s recent novels Ancestral, An Echo of Children, The Incubations, The Lonely Lands, Fellstones, The Wise Friend and Somebody’s Voice, alongside a selection of his backlist. It is an impressive shelf of unease, best kept somewhere the shadows cannot gather behind it.

Campbell is the only living horror writer included in The Oxford Companion to English Literature and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by Liverpool John Moores University in 2015. Guillermo del Toro has described him as “an absolute master of modern horror” and “a damn fine writer”, which is rather more reassuring than being praised by the Enfolders.

“Flame Tree have been Ramsey’s main publisher in the UK and US for almost a decade,” said Jarrold. “Nick Wells, Don D’Auria and the team are to be congratulated!”

Embrace the Dark will be published by Flame Tree Press in 2027. Until then, readers are advised not to investigate any mysterious occult societies, however badly their current manuscript may be going.