IN THE HEART OF HIDDEN THINGS

The strange is mundane in this fairy tale – and that’s not a negative point.

- Miriam McDonald

RELEASED 23 JUNE

409 pages | Hardback/ebook/ audiobook

Author Kit Whitfield

Publisher Jo Fletcher Books

Kit Whitfield’s vaguely 18th-century magical realist world is one where “fairy-smiths” are called upon to deal with problems with the fey, whether that’s fairly minor ones like badly behaved bushes, talking cats or investigating deaths at the jaws of Black Hal, the spectral hound that runs down Chalk Lane seven times a year. But their real problems are grasping landlords squeezing other villagers, threatening eviction and worse.

As the Smiths – Jedediah, Matthew and adolescent, slightly fey-touched John – try to help those around them and stand up to Ephraim Brady and Roger Groves, the book makes a beautiful exploration of masculinity, of what it means to be physically strong and potentially have control over others, and how a person accepts responsibility.