ANIMALS

<p><strong><em>ANIMALS</em></strong> tells the chilling tale of a family caught at the heart of a terrifying and transformative epidemic in an astonishing fusion of beautiful writing and pure horror at its finest.</p><p></p><p>Teddy has always been a special child. Frightened by other children described as 'imaginative' by teachers home-schooled by his mother. His closest friend was his father until he left them for another man.</p><p> </p><p>Now his closest friends are the family pets: the greyhounds his mother used to breed for racing; the three-hundred-pound family pig Charity and her best friend a duck; and the stray cat he slowly befriended: Little One.</p><p> </p><p>His life has never been idyllic but it was his until he and his mother are struck down with an inexplicable fever. Over the course of the hot drought-stricken Oxfordshire summer all of their animals fall sick. Whatever the mystery illness is it's targeting animals... and it's not long before the animals start to target them...</p><p></p><p><strong>Praise for Geoff Ryman:</strong></p><p></p><p>One of our finest writers.  <em>- Lisa Tuttle in the Guardian</em></p><p> </p><p>Ryman challenges his readers as he always has with an enormous defiant heart  <em>- Paul Cornell Hugo Award shortlisted author and screenwriter</em></p><p></p><p>Ryman offers an exceptional journey into the heart of human experience  <em> - Justina Robson award nominated author </em></p>