Synopses & Reviews
Just about everyone knows a family like the Radleys. Many of us grew up next door to one. They are a modern family, averagely content, averagely dysfunctional, living in a staid and quiet suburban English town. Peter is an overworked doctor whose wife, Helen, has become increasingly remote and uncommunicative. Rowan, their teenage son, is being bullied at school, and their anemic daughter, Clara, has recently become a vegan. They are typical, that is, save for one devastating exception: Peter and Helen are vampires and have—for seventeen years—been abstaining by choice from a life of chasing blood in the hope that their children could live normal lives.
One night, Clara finds herself driven to commit a shocking—and disturbingly satisfying—act of violence, and her parents are forced to explain their history of shadows and lies. A police investigation is launched that uncovers a richness of vampire history heretofore unknown to the general public. And when the malevolent and alluring Uncle Will, a practicing vampire, arrives to throw the police off Claras trail, he winds up throwing the whole house into temptation and turmoil and unleashing a host of dark secrets that threaten the Radleys marriage.
The Radleys is a moving, thrilling, and radiant domestic novel that explores with daring the lengths a parent will go to protect a child, what it costs you to deny your identity, the undeniable appeal of sin, and the everlasting, iridescent bonds of family love. Read it and ask what we grow into when we grow up, and what we gain—and lose—when we deny our appetites.
Review
"Funny, scary and wickedly familiar...Reading
The Radleys proved an unpredictable experience, its themes crafted through a pleasurable switch of tones. On the one hand it’s a parochial comedy of manners in a...suburban setting, but it quickly gathers poison and then effortlessly enters the supernatural without ever betraying its worldly concerns.”
— Alfonso CuarÓn, director of Y Tu MamÁ TambiÉn, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Children of Men
Review
"Delightfully eccentric ccomedy about a family of sburban undead...a strangely moving portrait of a marriage in which both partners are compelled to deny their own instincts and longings." —Financial Times
Review
"Haig has managed to coax something delightfully new and, unusually, rather English from a saturated genre...nifty revelations...it becomes an enjoyably twisty and self-aware tale. Haig combines strong dialogue with a healthy sense of self-parody in a novel that should appeal to all vampire fans, whatever their age."—Metro (4 star review)
Review
“Matt Haig writes a wickedly clever and completely addictive vampire novel, delicious from beginning to end. Teens and adults alike will be absolute gluttons for
The Radleys.”
— Lisa McMann, author of the New York Times bestselling Wake trilogy.
Review
"Witty and humane...Haig writes in addictive, bitesize chapters that pump the action along. He has fun with all the Vampyre lore...while keeping his characters convincing, original and likeable." —Daily Mail
Synopsis
A family satire about midlife crisis, addiction, sexual desire and teenage angst enacted among a 21st-century nuclear family of vampires.
About the Author
Matt Haig is the bestselling author of several children’s books and novels, including The Last Family in England, a UK bestseller, and The Radleys, winner of the ALA Alex Award. An alumnus of Hull University and Leeds, his work has been translated into twenty-nine languages. He lives in New York with his wife, UK novelist Andrea Semple, and their two children.