The Influence

"You needn't die unless you choose to.."

For the Faraday family these words hold the key to a nightmare that starts one bleak September evening in Liverpool. When the family matriarch, Queenie, dies, she is buried wearing a locket containing her eight-year-old granddaughter Rowan's hair. Soom afterwards Rowan makes a new friend, the curiously old-fashioned Vicky, under whose influence Rowan starts to turn against her own family, becoming cold, haughty and withdrawn. Only her mother, Alison, suspects the horrifying truth - that Queenie has fulfilled her evil prophecy and returned to live in Rowan's body. But will anyone believe her? And if they do, how can they break the evil "influence" that holds Rowan's body and soul in the balance?


Genre: Horror

"A subtle, intricate and beautifully constructed book...Campbell writes prose as incisive and elegant as anything in the mainstream can offer, while providing the reader with insight and chills only a master of dark fantasy could achieve." - Clive Barker

"Gripping, touching exceptional. For me, it's Ramsey Campbell's finest." - James Herbert