Samuel Johnson

Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund Boswell are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Halloween. Which is how they come to witness strange goings-on at 666 Crowley Avenue. The Abernathys don't mean any harm by their flirtation with the underworld. But when they unknowingly call forth Satan himself, they create a gap in the universe. A gap which holds a pair of enormous gates-the gates to Hell. And there are some pretty terrifying beings just itching to get out… Can one small boy defeat evil? Can he harness the power of science, faith and love to save the world as we know it? Bursting with imagination and impossible to put down, The Gates is about the pull between good and evil, physics and fantasy. It is about a quirky and eccentric boy who is impossible not to love, and the unlikely cast of characters who give him the strength to stand up to a demonic power. Like Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Gates manages to recreate for grownups that magical and scary world of childhood that we've all left behind but so love to visit.

From New York Times bestselling author John Connolly, a wonderfully strange and brilliant novel about a boy and his dog and their journey to escape the fires of hell. Roald Dahl meets Harry Potter in this wonderfully strange and brilliant novel about a boy, his dog, and their struggle to escape the wrath of demons. Young Samuel Johnson is in trouble. Not only is his eyesight so poor that he mistakenly asks out a letter box on a date but an angry demon wants revenge for Samuel's part in foiling the invasion of Earth by the forces of evil. When Samuel and his faithful dachshund, Boswell, are pulled through a portal into the dark realm, home of the Infernals, it gets its chance. Catching Samuel won't be easy, for the Infernals have not reckoned on the bravery and cleverness of a boy and his dog; a hapless demon's loyalty to the duo; or the presence of two clueless policemen and an unlucky, if cheerfully optimistic, ice-cream man. Most of all, no one has planned on the intervention of an unexpected band of little men who also have recently found themselves in the underworld. If you thought demons were frightening, just wait until you meet Mr. Merryweather's Elves. . . .

In this delightfully imaginative novel, once again, hell threatens to break loose as Samuel Johnson and his ragtag group of friends must defend their town from shadowy forces more threatening than ever before... In this clever and quirky follow-up to The Gates and The Infernals, Samuel Johnson's life seems to have finally settled down-after all, he's still got the company of his faithful dachshund, Boswell, and his bumbling demon friend, Nurd; he has foiled the dreaded forces of darkness not once, but twice; and he's dating the lovely Lucy Highmore, to boot. But things in the little English town of Biddlecombe rarely run smoothly for long. Shadows are gathering in the skies, a black heart of pure evil is bubbling with revenge, and it rather looks as if the Multiverse is about to come to an end, starting with Biddlecombe. When a new toy shop's opening goes terrifyingly awry, Samuel must gather a ragtag band of dwarfs, policemen, and very polite monsters to face down the greatest threat the Multiverse has ever known, not to mention assorted vampires, a girl with an unnatural fondness for spiders, and highly flammable unfriendly elves. The latest installment of John Connolly's wholly original and creepily imaginative Samuel Johnson Tales, The Creeps is humorous horror for anyone who enjoys fiction at its best.