Marginal

A man returns to the cult he escaped from to bury his brother, only to discover the past is monstrous, hungry and mutating, in this devilishly gory body horror. Perfect for fans of Adam Nevill and John Carpenter. When Rob receives a call in the middle of the night, he knows it must be bad news. But he isn't quite prepared for what he hears; his brother, Marcus, has died on the Systematics compound in Scotland, where the two of them grew up. The place Rob managed to escape with his sanity barely intact, the place that hollowed out his parents and his brother. Rob is determined to go up north to the compound to see Marcus laid to rest, but more importantly, to get to the bottom of what killed him. Because Rob has been waiting for the Systematics to make a mistake, for their charismatic leader Bjorn Thrissell to show his true colours so that Rob can make their crimes public and bring them down for good. But when Rob arrives at the compound with his producer Lucy in tow, they discover a group of people coming apart at the seams and paranoia seeping through the community. Mutiny is in the air and worse still... there is something lurking under the surface, something monstrous and murderous, something that has been biding its time in the margins... Trapped and isolated, Rob and Lucy are going to have to put their trust in the community they have come to ruin if any of them are going to have any hope of survival.

Tom Carlisle is interested in horror centred on folklore and religious belief. In 2017 he graduated with distinction from Bath Spa's Creative Writing MA, also winning the Bath Spa Writer's Award for outstanding writing. Originally from the north of England, he now lives in Bristol with his family. Blight is his debut novel. He tweets at @tjcarlisle