Description

Enter the sanctuary at your own risk. The primal and unsettling tale of just how far a woman must go to protect nature and its inhabitants, perfect for fans of Francine Toon and Andrew Michael Hurley.

🍎 ‘Unflinching… I loved it’ Lucy Rose, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Lamb
🦌 ‘Beware, this book is pretty but it has sharp teeth’ Rachel Harrison, New York Times bestselling author of Play Nice
🍁 ‘Do whatever you have to do to get your hands on this book’ Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters

‘The devil came on the autumn equinox, as he always did.’

Tess Wynne keeps mostly to herself in the hills of Appalachia. Her wildlife sanctuary is a refuge for the wounded and unwanted – and the only home she has left. She has built it carefully, with old rituals and even older bargains with the ominous visitor that comes each year.

Then she finds a doe split open on the road.

Beside it is the fawn who survived. Red-mouthed. Full set of teeth. Hungry.

From the moment Tess brings it home, whispers gather in town. A new pastor starts asking questions. And inside Tess, something primal begins to wake: anger, appetite, the slow understanding that prey is only prey for so long.

Dark, tender and eerie, Fawn is a slow-burning folk horror of nature, ritual and feverish femininity – a story about what a woman must become to protect what is hers.

🦌 Readers are feral for FAWN 🦌🦌 ‘One of my top books of the year!’
🦌 ‘This book had me reacting OUT LOUD’
🦌 ‘Not one to be missed!!!’
🦌 ‘Gets under your skin without really trying’
🦌 ‘A feminist woodland horror-fest with so much bite’

Publisher Review

An unflinching Appalachian horror and a book filled with bite, brutality, tenderness and evil. I loved it — Lucy Rose, Sunday Times bestselling author of THE LAMB A lush, eerie, utterly spellbinding contemporary tale with all the makings of a classic, elegantly rendered by an exciting new talent. Exquisitely unsettling, hauntingly beautiful, and quietly profound. Beware, this book is pretty but it has sharp teeth. — Rachel Harrison, New York Times bestselling author of PLAY NICE C.N. Vair has cast such a spell over me with her bewitching debut, I doubt any other book will ever break it. Sell your soul, sign your name in the Devil’s ledger, just do whatever you have to do to get your hands on this book. Damnation never read this good. — Clay McLeod Chapman, author of GHOST EATERS A compulsively readable, propulsive tale of what it means to bare your teeth and reclaim what belongs to you. Even if the cost is great. I didn’t want to leave Tess’ world and am still thinking about it days later. This is the sort of book I’ll revisit again and again. — Kristi DeMeester, author of DARK SISTERS and SUCH A PRETTY SMILE C.N. Vair conjures a world of blighted beauty, old magic, and terrible appetites. Fawn is spellbinding, vicious, and impossible to look away from. — Daphne Fama, author of HOUSE OF MONSTROUS WOMEN A contemporary story that feels utterly timeless, and undeniably classic. Like an ageless and evergreen ghost of the Brothers Grimm, with all the teeth and tenderness that you could want from a story of a dark, desperate, and not-so-helpless woman that feels more human in her supernatural affinity than any of her mortal counterparts. This book is impossibly tender, despite the fact that it sinks its teeth into your heart and chews its way through by the time the story draws to its brilliant, heartbreaking end. Vair balances the joy and triumph of victory against all odds with the insurmountable sorrow of the love we feel for all the small creatures of the world who simply live to survive. I felt genuinely breathless while reading, so engrossed in Vair’s evocative prose that I hardly could remember where I was. This book is sure to be a timeless classic, returned to again and again as a sterling example of what good folk horror should be. — Megan Bontrager, author of THE SEA HIDES ITS DEAD Finally: a witch book that doesn’t f*ck around. — Kirsty Logan, author of NO & OTHER LOVE STORIES