‘The Casualties’, my first novel, is out now from from Thomas Dunne.

Review at Paste Magazine

Synopsis

Samuel Clark likes secrets. He wants to know the hidden stories of the bizarre characters on the little streets of Edinburgh, Scotland. He wants to know about a nymphomaniac, a man who lives under a bridge, a girl with a cracked face. He wants to uncover their histories because he has secrets of his own.  He believes, as people do, that he is able to change. He believes, as the whole world does, that there is plenty of time to solve his problems. But Samuel Clark and the rest of the world are wrong. Change and tragedy are going to scream into his and everyone’s lives. It will be a great transformation, a radical change; and it just might be worth the cost.

Advance Praise

“The Casualties is a book like few others published today. Holdstock’s writing achieves a level of precision that, seemingly, is becoming harder and harder to find. There is an inimitable craftsmanship within these pages that is both piercing and stunning. Nick Holdstock has bred a rare and beautiful bird with The Casualties. We need more writers like him.” —Jason Mott, New York Times bestselling author of The Returned.

As readers we want to be thrilled, moved, tickled, saddened, something. But we don’t always ask outright for what we really want: a brilliant, one of a kind story. With The Casualties Nick Holdstock did it; it’s a wholly unique, lightning bolt of a book. The writing isn’t exactly like anybody else. The ideas aren’t plucked from a fashionable tree. The arc isn’t by numbers. Like encountering a personality you just haven’t met before, the book feels… new. Put it this way; despite knowing that something nasty was barreling toward Holdstock’s Comely Bank, I wanted to be there when it arrived, wanted to be with the characters when it was so close you could hear it, wanted to see the looks on their faces, wanted to kiss one, hold the hand of another. The novel is a wave of sensible madness. A masterpiece snapshot. If that sounds lofty, open her up, start on page one, and let it wash over you completely. – Josh Malerman, author of Bird Box)