Pine
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  • Published: 23 January 2020
  • ISBN: 9781473569232
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336

Pine

The spine-chilling Sunday Times bestseller

Formats & editions
EBook
23 Jan 2020
Audiobook
23 Jan 2020
Paperback
17 Nov 2020
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One of the biggest literary debuts of 2020, dark secrets lie at the heart of this haunting and powerful bestselling novel set in the Scottish Highlands

WINNER of the McIlvanney Prize 2020
Shortlisted for Bloody Scotland's Scottish Crime Debut of the Year 2020


'It's both eerie and thrilling at once, and had me under its spell until the end' Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure
They are driving home from the search party when they see her. The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men.
Lauren and her father Niall live alone in the Highlands, in a small village surrounded by pine forest. When a woman stumbles out onto the road one Halloween night, Niall drives her back to their house in his pickup. In the morning, she's gone.

In a community where daughters rebel, men quietly rage, and drinking is a means of forgetting, mysteries like these are not out of the ordinary. The trapper found hanging with the dead animals for two weeks. Locked doors and stone circles. The disappearance of Lauren's mother a decade ago.

Lauren looks for answers in her tarot cards, hoping she might one day be able to read her father's turbulent mind. Neighbours know more than they let on, but when local teenager Ann-Marie goes missing it's no longer clear who she can trust.

In the shadow of the Highland forest, Francine Toon captures the wildness of rural childhood and the intensity of small-town claustrophobia. In a place that can feel like the edge of the word, she unites the chill of the modern gothic with the pulse of a thriller. It is the perfect novel for our haunted times.

'Hugely atmospheric, exquisitely written and utterly gripping' Lucy Foley, author of The Hunting Party
  • Published: 23 January 2020
  • ISBN: 9781473569232
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
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About the author

Francine Toon

Francine Toon grew up in Sutherland and Fife, Scotland. Her poetry, written as Francine Elena, has appeared in The Sunday Times, The Best British Poetry 2013 and 2015 anthologies (Salt) and Poetry London, among other places. Pine was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award. She lives in London and works in publishing.

portrait photo of Francine Toon

Praise for Pine

Combines the Gothic sensibilities of Shirley Jackson with the psychologically astute suspense of Gillian Flynn ... will leave you gripped and transfixed

Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti

From the first page PINE casts a sense of slowly-rising unease that is completely compelling. It's both eerie and thrilling at once, and had me under its spell until the end

Sophie Mackintosh, author of THE WATER CURE

If there's any doubt that the Gothic thriller is enjoying a boom, Francine Toon's debut should settle the matter. PINE, a moving study of memory and loss, is both spooky and tender; drenched in a sense of place and yet eerily timeless

Mick Herron

I loved this book! Hugely atmospheric, exquisitely written and utterly gripping

Lucy Foley, author of The Hunting Party

Francine Toon's touching account of a flawed, yet tender, father-daughter relationship in PINE is all the more compelling against the starkly beautiful backdrop of the Scottish highlands

Livia Franchini, author of Shelf Life

A beautifully crafted gothic tale of isolation and not belonging. Thoroughly gripping and stunningly atmospheric

Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Water Shall Refuse Them

This is true modern gothic ... Toon’s plain, poetic language has a hypnotic quality

Harper’s Bazaar

With Pine, (Toon) … has passed the debut hurdle in striking style.

Harper's Bazaar

Marries the claustrophobia of rural life with fascinating hints of Scottish myths, to create an emotional read with the pace of a thriller

Irish Country Magazine

A remarkable debut

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(A) pacey horror-tinged novel ... Even with the strange and supernatural goings-on in the woods, it’s the rage and grief and darkness of grown-ups that’s the biggest mystery of all

Telegraph, Best First Novels of 2020

Has all the ingredients of a modern gothic.

Herald, Hot List 2020

Splicing small-town domestic drama with grisly mystery and occult thrills, it’s a cleverly crafted debut

Metro

As gripping as any boxset

Sunday Times Scotland

Pine is a thrill of a book

i-D

A memorable debut from a promising new writer

Irish Times

An evocative read which will keep you guessing

Sunday Independent

[A] simmering gothic thriller

Daily Mail

One of the standout debuts of the year

Irish Independent

A haunting and heartbreakingly bewitching tale … Packed with folklore, magic and an eerie sense of foreboding every time you turn the page, Pine will captivate readers from the very first page

Her.ie

A gothic stirring of folklore and legend

RTÉ Guide

Eerie and spell-binding

Irish Examiner

A literary gothic thriller to chill the marrow

Guardian

A haunting tale

Sunday Express

The novel's strength is its evocation of bleak landscapes and complex characters

Sunday Times

This haunting debut is a must-read for fans of eerie gothic fiction

The Skinny

A debut novel that's carefully calibrated to make every single hair on the back of your neck stand up on end

Scotland on Sunday

A modern gothic thriller that draws on the author's own Highland childhood

Herald Magazine

An atmospheric tale of memory and loss, movingly told through a child's eyes

Sunday Express Magazine

An atmospheric tale of memory and loss

Daily Mirror

Eerie and dark, you'll be mesmerised by this dramatic tale with its tightly-woven plot

Woman