From Bram Stoker Award-nominated author, Ross Jeffery, comes a new terror…that of being held hostage by the thing we love the most.
During the sleepy off-season in the picturesque seaside village of Polperro, Cornwall, Erik and Lara find themselves at the mercy of their grief. What was to be a time of healing from the loss of their daughter soon turns into a living nightmare when they find a pod floating in the water, containing a precious gift from the sea and foolishly decide to take it home.
But what they’ve invited into their lives is something unnatural, something that mimics reality as they had hoped it would be. As reality gradually slips away from the couple, they soon realise they are contending with forces more powerful than the undertows of the ocean and just as inescapable. Their grief, like the sea, will drown them if they let it.
With the unsettling folk undertones found in Robert Eggers’ films, The Devil’s Pocketbook shows Jeffery is a master of grief literary horror, sure to make your stomach twist.
About the Author :
Ross Jeffery is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated and 3x Splatterpunk Award-nominated author of Metamorphosis, I Died Too, But They Haven’t Buried Me Yet, Only The Stains Remain and Harvesting The Nightmare Fields. He is represented by Elizabeth Copps of Copps Literary Services and for Film and TV rights by Alec Frankel of IAG (Independent Artist Group) where several of his projects are in various stages of development. You can follow him on Bluesky @RossJefferyauthor.bsky.social or on Instagram @rossjefferyauthor. Ross lives in Newport, Wales, with his wife (Anna) and two children (Eva and Sophie).
Review :
"The Devil’s Pocketbook isn’t a story you can casually dip in and out of. Its funereal mood engulfs you and lingers after reading. The briny seaside environment is crucial to this, enhancing the author’s tone with every spray of freezing water." —Fangoria
"The Devil’s Pocketbook is a haunting work of folk horror that never loses sight of the human heart beating beneath its haunting premise. Beautifully written and quietly devastating.” —Cemetery Dance
"In The Devil’s Pocketbook, Ross Jeffery marries a raw, unsettling, emotionally painful story with an isolated, stunningly rendered setting. The result? A harrowing tale that will haunt you and move you. A fantastic book!" —Jonathan Janz, author of Marla and The Dismembered
"The allure to keep reading was almost concerning. There’s magic in these words. Good luck putting it down." —Chad Lutzke, author of Stirring the Sheets and Of Foster Homes and Flies
"A Lynchian fever dream of love and loss. Haunting. Disturbing. Touching. Masterful in every way. A rare psychological terror. Not to be missed." —Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
"A gut-wrenching, beautifully-written portrait of loss, grief and deliverance. The Devil’s Pocketbook marries the emotional heft of a Kieslowski movie with the feverish, horrifying imagination of Barker and Beukes. Jeffery keeps getting better and better–and this one, for me, is his best book yet." —TC Parker, author of Saltblood
"The Devil’s Pocketbook strikes you with waves of folkloric darkness and visceral horror but it’s the irrepressible current of tragedy and loss which drags the reader under and refuses to let go. This is a special novel, with a rare emotional weight which will make you want to hold those closest to you that bit tighter." —Kev Harrison, author of The Balance and Below
"You will grieve the grief in The Devil’s Pocketbook. You will bear the hope. You will discover, too, cruel wonder in a pod in a rocky bay, even as you think: Get away. Ross Jeffery is the two things you long for most in an author of horror: first, he’s fearless. Second, he’s giving. Giving you, the reader, all that fear instead." —Josh Malerman, New York Times Best-selling author of Bird Box and Incidents Around The House
"Every page of The Devil’s Pocketbook is permeated with deep, dark grief, the kind that sweeps you under, that makes you do unimaginable things. There’s an uneasy undercurrent from the very beginning, pulling the solid ground from beneath your feet as you watch a family descend too far, always knowing they’re a breath away from going under. Ross Jeffery has written a story full of emotion and dread, all with the tang of salty sea air and the dark promises of what lurks in the deep." —Laurel Hightower, author of Crossroads
"Never has a study of grief been so masterfully rendered on the page. The Devil’s Pocketbook is both breath-taking and unflinching; showcasing a writer at his very best and who has crafted a work of such horrific beauty that you’ll struggle to look away." —James Frey, New York Times Best-selling author of A Million Little Pieces
"Like the mysterious tides of its Cornwall setting, The Devil’s Pocketbook engulfs you in waves of horror, grief and the uncanny. And though never short on the disturbing, it’s Ross Jeffery’s innate sense of the humane that makes his work all the more terrifying." —James Ashcroft, Award Winning Director of Coming Home in the Dark and The Rule of Jenny Pen
"With The Devil's Pocketbook, Ross Jeffery has crafted a haunting tale of a grieving couple who find themselves at the mercy of a sinister force at their weakest hour - a seaside folk horror that immerses you in the strange, dreamlike events of a harbor town with dark secrets." —L.J Dougherty, author of Daughters of Cruelty and Sisters DeRosa
"Grief is a phantom blade that Jeffery knows all too well how to twist deep into the quivering hearts of his defenseless readers." —L. Stephenson, author of No.9 Whitlock
"Insular small town creep and dark secrets collide with broken people in a haunting and disturbing tale. The pain of grief leads to genuinely unsettling shock in this masterful horror novel from Jeffery. Prepare to have every emotion shredded." —Alan Baxter, author of The Gulp and Sallow Bend
