A disturbing and atmospheric psychological thriller where black magic triumphs over sanity
Word by word, like in a spell, the enigmatic mystery transcends the pages and bewitches the reader. An intense, mesmerising, well-crafted plot.
On a thunderous night, Max arrives in Shimst, a remote village in the north of Scotland. Four bizarre words welcome him at the entrance of the seemingly deserted town: Do What Thou Wilt . The next morning Max learns that the village is cut off from the outside world because of the storm. Confined within the mountains Max is troubled by visions of a past he doesn’t recognize as his own. Something or someone is plotting against him, twisting his sense of reality. What terrifies him most is that the inner space is becoming as menacing as the outer space. He feels that his mind, and even his soul, are no longer a known territory, that shelter is out of reach…
With its unnerving atmosphere and brilliant psychological probing, Black Bile captures the imagination of readers who soon begin to fear that there is no way back once they have plunged into the depths of their unconscious.
Samantha Devin weaves each paragraph with the icy calm of a Patricia Highsmith, as she builds a Gothic structure of inner horror. Black Bile brings elements to the labyrinths of our psyche that recall the obsessions of Ernesto Sabato and Edgar Allan Poe. DIARIO DE OAXACA
A disturbing stroll through the abysses of madness. Black Bile is a disconcerting novel shrouded in a dark, angst-ridden atmosphere. The thread of the plot unravels into a page-turner that grips the reader from the first paragraph. Samantha Devin subtly handles the genre, sustaining the reader’s interest with twists and turns that become totally addictive. EUROPA PRESS
Getting to know reality becomes our worst nightmare. EL PAIS
Samantha Devin publishes her first novel in which she closes in on the vertiginous boundaries of mental illness and interrogates the very concept of reality. EL MUNDO
Samantha Devin is the author of Arcadia, A Modern Tragedy and Heroica. Her novels have been translated into English and German.
