Beware what waits in the shadows…
With one unexpected email from her estranged best friend, Lucy, Mina Murray’s carefully curated life is turned upside down. Leaving behind her psychiatric practice in London, along with her routine and the calm it brings, she returns to the windswept shores of Wales. Faced with everything she’s left behind, she soon discovers that Lucy’s symptoms mirror those of her mysterious patient with amnesia hundreds of miles away.
With nothing but an untreatable sickness connecting the two women, and with Lucy’s life on the line, Mina finds herself asking questions and being drawn ever-deeper into a web of secrets, missing girls, and the powerful, nameless force at its center—one that has been haunting her for years.
As terrible, ancient truths begin to reveal themselves, Mina prepares to confront her own darkest secrets, and with them, an evil beyond comprehension. Together with a group of smart, savvy women, Mina seizes one last, desperate chance to stop the cycle that began so long ago. But there are dangers to inviting the attentions of what might not be a man, but a monster…
"Fiercely feminist and fantastically eerie, The Madness is Welsh Gothic at its most intoxicating. Dawn Kurtagich really is the queen of darkness, drawing beautifully on Bram Stoker's Dracula to deliver a story that's smart, fresh and frightening in equal measure. This book wraps itself around you like a wraith and refuses to let go." — Josh Winning, author of Burn the Negative
"Darkly evocative and thought-provoking, Kurtagich is one of my favorite writers."
-- Evelyn Skye, New York Times bestselling author of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
"If you thought Mina Harker deserved more credit, more power, and more agency, this Dracula remix is for you. The Madness zeroes in on the original’s undercurrent of sexual violence and puts its targets–young women–in the starring roles, arming them not only with wooden stakes and arcane lore but also with love and solidarity. Kurtagich’s vampires, like Stoker’s, are vicious, calculating predators, but this time the prey bites back." -- Amelinda Bérubé, author of Here There Are Monsters
“In THE MADNESS, Dawn Kurtagich has created a stunning Dracula retelling - creepy, insidious and visceral. This book will haunt me for a long time - in the very best way.” -- Amy McCulloch, author of Breathless
“Exquisitely dark, disturbing, and clever as hell! Kurtagich’s hypnotic retelling electrifies and relentlessly propels the reader forward with one cliffhanger after another. If you think you’ve heard this story before, think again. THE MADNESS is a tour de force of feminist horror.” -- Paulette Kennedy, bestselling author of The Witch of Tin Mountain
"THE MADNESS is genuinely chilling and endlessly compelling. Welsh folklore, small towns, and secrets - this story is gothic horror at its finest." -- Emily Lloyd-Jones, author of The Bone Houses
I devoured The Madness. A modern interpretation of Dracula cast with familiar characters, the story is deferential, referential and yet wholly its own terrifying achievement. Kurtagich's writing is lively and gorgeous. This original spin on a familiar tale is guaranteed to keep you turning the pages until the sun comes up.
--Joshua Moehling, author of And There He Kept Her and Where the Dead Sleep
Kurtagich has taken THE classic horror novel and dragged it into the twenty-first century in this fabulous, feminist, and fierce retelling. Mina Harker was one of the most passive women in literature, representing Victorian virtue until she is attacked, and then is considered soiled because of it. The Mina of The Madness is intelligent, flawed, and fiercely relatable. She takes matters into her own hands, and forms a band of badass women, reimagining Stoker’s boys club in a manner that will leave you pumping your fist in the air with triumph.
— Ann Dávila Cardinal, award-winning author of Th
