The Ravaged Night

In the 1990s, in a housing estate on the outskirts of Toulouse, it seems nothing ever happens. Then a boy dies, and the adults are quick to call it suicide.

Connected by grief, boredom and a creeping sense that something is terribly wrong, the boy’s friends are drawn to an abandoned house that exerts a strange power over them—it seems to offer an alternate reality that is both nightmarish and a sinister sanctuary.

At the same time, the group is forced to confront the violence and despair festering inside their families and their town. What begins as a dare becomes an obsession—and then a reckoning. Their story could be our own.

Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, whose novels include Animalia and Son of Man, is one of France’s most brilliant writers. With shades of Shirley Jackson and Stephen King, The Ravaged Night is about friendship, the loss of innocence and the places that devour us.

‘Chilling and beautifully written…It pulled me in from the first page and refused to let go.’ Dua Lipa on The Son of Man

‘Stupendously good…Exhilarating and frightening to read. Every page blazes with incandescent prose.’ Christos Tsiolkas on Animalia

‘A sublime homage from Del Amo to Stephen King, the master of the genre.’ Elle Magazine on The Ravaged Night

‘The challenge: how can one write horror from which beauty and melancholy would emerge? A successful gamble, as the book will also appeal to readers who are not usually drawn to the genre…Perhaps one of the best novels of the year.’ Vanity Fair on The Ravaged Night