Fiend
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Historical horror maven Alma Katsu turns her talents to the modern world for the first time, in this terrifying tale about an all-powerful family with an ancient evil under its thumb.
"If you liked Succession but think it would have been a lot more fun with a 1,000 year old demon, then Alma Katsu's Fiend has got you covered." —Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
Imagine if the Sackler family had a demon at their beck and call.
The Berisha family runs one of the largest import-export companies in the world, and they’ve always been lucky. Their rivals suffer strokes. Inconvenient buildings catch on fire. Earthquakes swallow up manufacturing plants, destroying harmful evidence. Things always seem to work out for the Berishas. They’re blessed.
At least that is what Zef, the patriarch, has always told his three children. And each of them knows their place in the family—Dardan, as the only male heir, must prepare to take over as keeper of the Berisha secrets, Maris’s most powerful contribution, much to her dismay, will be to marry strategically, and Nora’s job, as the youngest, is to just stay out of the way. But when things stop going as planned, and the family blessing starts looking more like a curse, the Berishas begin to splinter, each hatching their own secret scheme. They didn’t get to be one of the richest families in the world without spilling a little blood, but this time, it might be their own.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Katsu (The Fervor) reveals the dark secret behind the success of a powerful Manhattan family in this haunting tale. The Albanian American Berishas, led by patriarch Zef, run an import-export company that "rivals Koch Industries and Cargill, dwarfs Nucor and Daifuku." Zef's children were always told that their family's success was granted by a "protector," a force that has "cowed rivals for centuries." Only the heir-designate, Dardan, believes that he has actually seen this force: as a child, he witnessed waves of black smoke emerge from his father's body during an argument. This terrifying vision has led him to believe that the protector is not a blessing but a curse. AFter former Berisha lobbyist Jack Hargrove prepares to blow the whistle on the family, claiming to have evidence of bribes to Congress, the problem is averted when Hargrove dies alone in a locked room before he can testify. Dardan suspects the protector was responsible and investigates; meanwhile, his sisters scheme to advance their own interests in a clan where women are viewed as mere vessels to carry on the family line. Katsu's exploration of the bloody price of privilege keeps the pages turning. It's a supernaturally charged Succession that will have readers hooked.
