Joyce Carol Oates

‘A page-turner … nothing less than magical’ Observer ‘An extraordinary slice of suburban noir’ Daily Mail From one of America’s most renowned storytellers comes a novel about love and deceit, and lust and redemption, against a background of child abductions in the affluent suburbs of Detroit. In the waning days of the turbulent 1970s, in the wake of unsolved killings...

A new collection of poetry from an American literary legend, her first in twenty-five years Joyce Carol Oates is one of our most insightful observers of the human heart and mind, and, with her acute social consciousness, one of the most insistent and inspired witnesses of a shared American history. Oates is perhaps best known for her prodigious output of...

America’s preeminent fiction writer — New YorkerA raw, propulsive tale of love and grief — Mail on Sunday A novel of love and loss from the bestselling and prizewinning author of Blonde. Michaela and her husband have moved to the starkly beautiful but uncanny landscape of New Mexico to take up an academic residency. But when Gerard is struck by...

A powerful reckoning over the people we might have been if we’d chosen a different path, from a master of the short story. In this stirring, reflective collection of short stories, Joyce Carol Oates ponders alternate destinies: the other lives we might have led if we’d made different choices. An accomplished writer returns to her childhood home of Yewville, but...

From Joyce Carol Oates, one of America's most feted and critically acclaimed authors, a collection of mysterious, suspenseful, and macabre tales. In her inimitable style, Oates takes the reader on unsettling journeys through the modern American psyche. Here you will find tales of loss and grief, confusion and darkness; of violent ends and the cruel march of time; of failed...

IN THE HEART OF A LANGUID JULY, ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD JOHN REDDY HEART drives a traffic-stopping, salmon-coloured Cadillac into the quiet upstate town of Willowsville, New York. His mother, Dahlia Heart, a blackjack dealer, has brought her family east from Las Vegas to claim the rambling mansion left to her by a wealthy suitor. But it is John Reddy—already growing into a...

From literary icon Joyce Carol Oates comes a brand new collection of haunting and, at times, darkly humorous mystery & suspense stories. These are tales of psyches pushed to their limits by the expectations of everyday life – from a woman who gets lost on her drive home to her plush suburban home and ends up breaking into a stranger's...

‘Impressive and unsettling’ NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 'Eerie, shocking, provoking' GILLIAN FLYNN 'Engrossing even as it horrifies' BIG ISSUE 'Inescapably abhorrent yet enthralling … Oates understands, as always, how to keep us on the hook’ LOS ANGELES TIMES 'Absolutely chilling … this is Oates at her most disturbing and masterful’ SEATTLE TIMES A spellbinding novel of literary and psychological...

From Joyce Carol Oates, one of America's most feted and critically acclaimed authors, comes a collection of mysterious, suspenseful, and macabre tales. In her inimitable style, Oates takes the reader on unsettling journeys through the modern American psyche. Here you will find tales of loss and grief, confusion and darkness; of violent ends and the cruel march of time; of...

Celebrating 40 Years of pseudonymous suspense from JOYCE CAROL OATES Four decades ago, acclaimed literary author Joyce Carol Oates penned her first novel of psychological suspense under the name “Rosamond Smith.” In the Smith books, Oates explored themes of betrayal and deception, lust and murder, through stories involving twins, doubles, and hidden second identities – initially, keeping her own double identity...

A collection of twenty-two disturbing tales of crime and suspense from literary icon Joyce Carol Oates, 'America's preeminent fiction writer' (New Yorker) Two hitmen in a depressed rust belt town struggle with a job gone wrong. A girl witnesses a horrifying accident and carries it with her for the rest of her life. Medical students bring a severed foot to...

Unavailable for 40 years, this seminal novel of madness and murder is acclaimed author Joyce Carol Oates' powerful trip into the mind of a maniac. Abandoned as a baby in a bus station locker, shuttled from one abusive foster home and detention centre to another, Bobbie Gotteson grew up angry, hurting, damaged. His hunger to succeed as a musician brought...

From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, a collection of four dark and compelling novellas about love gone wrong. The young fourth wife of a prominent intellectual thinks herself happy until the first wife comes to stay. A shy teenager meets a dazzling kindred spirit. But the first sparks of young love...

Will burrow under your skin and live forever in your darkest dreams Bust Joyce Carol Oates assembles a spectacular cast to explore, subvert, and reinvent one of horror's most visceral subgenres. Focusing on distortions of the human body, the fifteen short stories of A Darker Shade will delight, disgust, and shock you. From the metaphysical horror of a snail trapped...

The Stoker Award-winning chilling anthology of 18 short stories in tribute to the genius of Shirley Jackson, collecting today's best horror writers. Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand and more. A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by, and in tribute to, Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is a seminal...

From the towering imagination of Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, come seven feverishly unsettling works of suspense. A precocious eleven-year-old, in thrall to the mysterious black sheep of the family, climbs into his sky-blue Chevy to be driven to an uncertain, unforgettable fate. A university student becomes obsessed with the murder...

‘Oates’s imagination is as unique, dystopian and vivid as Lewis Carroll’s’ ROSE TREMAIN 'A master storyteller' THE TIMES 'Electric' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Zero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of America’s most acclaimed writers. A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmanoeuvred; diabolically clever high school...

‘Chilling’ FINANCIAL TIMES ‘Tom Ripley, eat your heart out’ NPR ‘Eerie, shocking, provoking’ GILLIAN FLYNN A chilling, captivating novel about the dark secrets that surface after the shocking disappearance of a charming, mercurial teacher at an elite boarding school. Who is Francis Fox? A charismatic, young English teacher joins an elite New Jersey boarding school. Francis Fox quickly beguiles many...

When a woman mysteriously vanishes from her small town home, her sister must tally up the clues to uncover the truth behind the mystery. Beautiful sculptor Marguerite has disappeared from her small town in upstate New York. But was foul play involved? Did she merely get away for some fun? Or did she finally make the decision to leave behind...

From the towering imagination of Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, seven nightmarish and unbearably taut tales. Marissa is an innocent girl, with hair the colour of corn-silk. She does not hold others in strange thrall, as some young women do; she obeys her parents and does not stay late after school,...

Nobody has ever caught Marilyn more brilliantly in words than Oates. John Sutherland, Sunday Times Oates has been fearless in taking on a subject that criss-crossed almost every important strand of mid-twentieth century history. Apart from her, only Don DeLillo, among today's American novelists, and no one at all among today's American women novelists, would be able to handle such...

From Joyce Carol Oates, one of America's most feted and critically acclaimed authors, a collection of mysterious, suspenseful, and macabre tales. In her inimitable style, Oates takes the reader on unsettling journeys through the modern American psyche. Here you will find tales of loss and grief, confusion and darkness; of violent ends and the cruel march of time; of failed...

From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of Blonde, now a major motion picture, comes an eerie, psychologically complex thriller about a woman haunted by her traumatic past. As a child, Abby had the same nightmare night after night, in which she wandered through a field ridden with human bones. Now an adult, Abby thinks she's outgrown her demons...

The bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society. Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: when a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his...

A tale of murder, loss and romance in the mist of Niagara Falls: it is the crowning achievement of Joyce Carol Oates's career to date. A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. He's a newly-wed, and his bride has been left behind in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. For two weeks, Alma, the...

‘Simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious and creative writer going’ GILLIAN FLYNN 'Gripping … Bravura storytelling' VOGUE 'A blood-soaked, gothic nightmare' FINANCIAL TIMES From one of our most accomplished storytellers, an extraordinary and arresting novel about a nineteenth-century women's asylum, and a terrifying doctor who wants to change the world. Humiliated by a procedure gone terribly wrong, Dr Silas...

From the towering imagination of Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, comes a psychologically complex thriller examining the fine line between genius and madness. Andrew J. Rush is a successful mystery writer with twenty-eight novels to his name. He has a loving wife, three grown children, and is well-known in his small...

‘Simply the most consistently inventive, brilliant, curious, and creative writer going’ GILLIAN FLYNN 'Gripping … Bravura storytelling' VOGUE 'A blood-soaked, gothic nightmare' FINANCIAL TIMES From one of our most accomplished storytellers, an extraordinary and arresting novel about a nineteenth-century women's asylum, and a terrifying doctor who wants to change the world. Humiliated by a procedure gone terribly wrong, Dr Silas...

From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of Blonde, now a major motion picture, comes a collection of darkly compelling tales. A young professor is convinced she's being followed, but when she confronts her shadow, all is not as it seems. A promising student attempts to save her brother from his descent into madness, but finds there may be...

A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by, and in tribute to, Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is a seminal writer of horror and mystery fiction, whose legacy resonates globally today. Chilling, human, poignant and strange, her stories have inspired a generation of writers and readers. This anthology, edited by legendary horror editor Ellen Datlow, brings together today's leading...