Better the Devil
get ready for queer mayhem in the gritty psychological thriller from the bestselling author of All That's Left in the World
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 22 Jan 2026
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- 45,00 kr
Publisher Description
Get ready for queer mayhem in this gritty psychological thriller filled with stolen identity, true crime and first love, from the bestselling author of All That's Left in the World. For fans of One of Us Is Lying, The Reappearance of Rachel Price and They Both Die at the End.
Desperate to escape a family who will never accept him, a queer runaway in police custody borrows the identity of a boy who vanished years ago: Nate Beaumont. But when Nate's family come to take him home, he's trapped in a web of lies.
Then he meets Miles - the cute, clever and true-crime obsessed boy next door - who knows more than it seems. Unexpectedly, Miles agrees to help, in exchange for uncovering the truth about what happened years ago to his childhood best friend. As their investigation turns dangerous, their feelings turn real.
Time is running out.
They don't know who to trust.
And someone is watching who wants to keep this case cold.
Will they find the missing boy . . . or will they find each other?
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"Brimming with darkness and suspense, each page of Better the Devil ramps up on a slow, creeping dread until the explosive, incredibly tense climax. A smart, sinister book that also explores themes of self-acceptance and identity - I flew through it."
- Ravena Guron, author of This Book Kills
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Brown (The Only Light Left Burning) fuses survival thriller and suspenseful mystery to deliver a resonant psychological roller coaster. Having spent eight months living unhoused after running away from his religious parents, who intended to send him to conversion therapy, a queer unnamed 16-year-old, driven by hunger, is apprehended by police for stealing food from a store. At the station, he claims that he's Nathaniel Beaumont, a boy on a missing persons poster to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance. Now going by Nate, the teen is united with the Beaumont family, whose warmth is undermined by an unsettling current of suspicion. As unexplained incidents such as break-ins and gas leaks escalate the tension, the protagonist begins to feel the strain of his new role and plots an escape. Upon accidentally confessing his secret to a neighbor, true crime aficionado Miles, he is coerced into investigating Nathaniel's mysterious disappearance a decade prior. Organic first-person narration persuasively captures the narrator's adolescent immaturity, self-awareness, and desire to belong. His conviction that love is always conditional—informed by his parents' rejection and his neglectful upbringing—lends emotional weight to the suspense. Main characters read as white. Ages 13–up.
