The Captive

Praise for The Captive

CrimeReads Best Horror Fiction of the Year

“A thrilling, gory tale with comic details (‘next to her daughter, everything else in the universe is just hair-clippings and pencil shavings’) and a cosmic worldview (‘large concentrations of wealth are like deformations in space-time: they warp reality around them’).”
—The Minnesota Star Tribune

“Ned Beauman, writing here as Kit Burgoyne, is a clever writer whose previous work has made free with genre conventions and who isn’t afraid to be funny . . . He is, as I say, having fun – and the reader of this accomplished and super-readable romp has fun too.”
—The Guardian

“What would happen if Rosemary’s baby belonged to Patty Hearst? An absolute blast (in more ways than one). I tore through this devilishly delightful, razor-sharp treat and enjoyed every minute.”
—Jennifer Thorne, author of Diavola

“Enthralling, terrifying and endlessly surprising.”
—M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with all the Gifts

“Sharp, bleak, funny, and disturbingly prescient, The Captive is a pitch-black blast of evil unpredictable fun.”
—Justin Taylor, author of Reboot

“[A] witty supernatural thrill ride . . . Burgoyne keeps the action brisk and the repartee sharp in the ensuing game of cat-and-mouse . . . This refreshingly modern spin on the infernal child theme deserves to stand beside such genre classics as Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen.”
—Publishers Weekly

“The Captive is a dark yet affecting novel of both intense horror and high drama.”
—Manhattan Book Review
“The Captive is exactly the offal-plastered zinger I was desperate for it to be. Humorous and absurd—almost theatrically so, but weighted enough with grim reality to keep the laughter jagged in your throat—The Captive is both a riot and a reckoning.”
—FanFiAddict

“Ultimately, Kit Burgoyne’s The Captive is not simply another clever, tense thriller; it plunges headlong into fanaticism, power, and that uneasy place where you begin to question if the good men and the evil guys are actually all that different . . . Thought-provoking.”
—Bestsellers World

“Rosemary’s Baby, but make it Patty Hearst! Come for the set-up, stay for the garden party. You’ll know it when you see it.”
—CrimeReads

Praise for the author’s novels published as Ned Beauman

“Wonderfully outlandish.”
—The New York Times

“Wildly inventive.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“Gobsmackingly clever.”
—Vanity Fair

“Uproarious.”
—The New Yorker

“Endlessly witty and furiously inventive.”
—The Washington Post

“One of the foremost satirists of his generation.”
—The Times (UK)