Longlisted for the Sunday Times SA Fiction Award
The Mall
Dan works at a bookstore in a deadly dull shopping mall where nothing ever happens. He's an angsty emo-kid who sells mid-list books for minimum wage. He hates his job. Rhoda has dragged her babysitting charge to the mall. Now the kid has run off, and Rhoda has two hours to find him. She hates her life. Rhoda bullies Dan into helping her search, but as they explore the corridors behind the mall, they are pulled into a terrifying world...
The New Girl
Ryan Devlin has taken a job as a handyman at an exclusive private school, Crossley College. He's losing his battle to suppress his growing fascination with a new girl who seems to have a strange effect on the children around her. Tara Marais fills her empty days by volunteering at Crossley's library. But Tara has a secret, an obsession that is as dark as it is dangerous. Both Tara and Ryan are being drawn into a terrifying scheme.
The Ward
Lisa is a plastic surgery addict. The only hospital that will let her go under the knife is New Hope: a grimy facility dubbed 'No Hope' by its patients. Farrell is a celebrity photographer. His last memory is of a fight with his fashion-model girlfriend and now he's woken up in No Hope, alone - and blind. Farrell persuades Lisa to help him escape, but the hospital's dimly lit corridors only take them deeper underground - into a twisted mirror world...
Genre: Science Fiction
The Mall
Dan works at a bookstore in a deadly dull shopping mall where nothing ever happens. He's an angsty emo-kid who sells mid-list books for minimum wage. He hates his job. Rhoda has dragged her babysitting charge to the mall. Now the kid has run off, and Rhoda has two hours to find him. She hates her life. Rhoda bullies Dan into helping her search, but as they explore the corridors behind the mall, they are pulled into a terrifying world...
The New Girl
Ryan Devlin has taken a job as a handyman at an exclusive private school, Crossley College. He's losing his battle to suppress his growing fascination with a new girl who seems to have a strange effect on the children around her. Tara Marais fills her empty days by volunteering at Crossley's library. But Tara has a secret, an obsession that is as dark as it is dangerous. Both Tara and Ryan are being drawn into a terrifying scheme.
The Ward
Lisa is a plastic surgery addict. The only hospital that will let her go under the knife is New Hope: a grimy facility dubbed 'No Hope' by its patients. Farrell is a celebrity photographer. His last memory is of a fight with his fashion-model girlfriend and now he's woken up in No Hope, alone - and blind. Farrell persuades Lisa to help him escape, but the hospital's dimly lit corridors only take them deeper underground - into a twisted mirror world...
Genre: Science Fiction
Used availability for S L Grey's The Ward / The Mall / The New Girl