Winner of the Aurealis Awards for Best Fantasy and Best Horror
Novel
With brilliantly evocative, hypnotic prose, Trent Jamieson crafts a
coming-of-age, elevated horror story about a headstrong boy--and the
monstrous vampire who taught him to be a man.
The Masters, dreadful and severe, rule the Red City and the lands far
beyond it. By night, they politic and feast, drinking from townsfolk
resigned to their fates. By day, the Masters must rely on their human
servants, their Day Boys, to fulfill their every need and carry out
their will.
Mark is a Day Boy, practically raised by his Master, Dain. It's
grueling, often dangerous work, but Mark neither knows nor wants any
other life. And, if a Day Boy proves himself worthy, the nightmarish,
all-seeing Council of Teeth may choose to offer him a rare gift: the
opportunity to forsake his humanity for monstrous power and
near-immortality, like the Masters transformed before him.
But in the crackling heat of the Red City, widespread discontent among
his fellow humans threatens to fracture Mark's allegiances. As manhood
draws near, so too does the end of Mark's tenure as a Day Boy, and he
cannot stay suspended between the worlds of man and Master for much
longer.
"Poetic and meditative--at times frightening, visceral and
bloody--this is a dark journey worth making." --Aurealis
