Philip Fracassi

CLASH Books (US) / Black Crow Books (UK)

Paperback, eBook, Audiobook

SARAFINA

A Novel.

SYNOPSIS:

Choosing to risk execution rather than be killed in a losing war, three brothers desert their posts and begin a long, arduous journey back home. After weeks of dealing with rough terrain while evading bandits and home guard soldiers—starving, injured, and exhausted—the brothers find a miracle deep in the dark woods. A home.

Living in a remote cabin is a beautiful woman, Sarafina, and her young son, Titus. Sarafina takes the soldiers in, cares for them, feeds them, offers them a place to rest. But the youngest of the brothers is wary—something is not what it seems. After discovering a mysterious creek and a strange underground cavern, he gets a strong sense that the cabin, and the fertile land surrounding it, might be harboring something nefarious, terrifying, and dangerous.

What ensues is a nightmare beyond imagination, an escalation of horrors that the brothers must somehow fight to survive. With tensions high, the country divided, and loyalties put to the test, Sarafina spotlights that Fracassi is a star of modern horror.

EARLY PRAISE:

“A fairytale like no other, Fracassi has crafted a nightmarish story weaving together threads of mythology, history, fantasy, and horror that explores the bonds of brotherhood through a terrifying landscape of war, religion, and the supernatural.” — SCREAM MAGAZINE

“Sarafina is the literary equivalent of a cannonball that’ll leave you bruised, bloody, and broken. A dark and unsettling novel that uses spiritual mythology, and the war America fought against itself, as the backdrop for a story that will twist your stomach and shred your nerves.” — TYLER JONES, author of Night of the Long Knives

“Philip Fracassi’s Sarafina is a shape-shifting fever dream: part historical epic, part coming of age—but its horrors are one-hundred-proof: pure, potent, and wholly terrifying.” — NICK CUTTER, author of Little Heaven