Simon Maginn was born in Wallasey, Merseyside, in 1961. He was educated at St Mary’s College, Wallasey, and studied music at the University of Sussex, specialising in percussion and composition. He published his first novel, Sheep, in 1994, and also writes as Simon Nolan.

‘Simon Maginn is a very subtle writer, always original and unsettling in his subject matter and treatment. He is the most talented of the younger British horror writers, and he has the potential to become the best of them all. Already his work may be compared to the recent novels of Ramsey Campbell and to the early writings of Ian McEwan. Maginn’s trademark is bleakness; he deals realistically with disturbed or disintegrating characters at the edge of madness, for whom there will be no happy ending… Maginn is not a flashy writer of commercial horror like Clive Barker, but his work is full of exquisite qualities and deserves rereading for its layers of meaning. He may come to be regarded as one of the best in the field.’ St James Guide.

‘Nolan is brilliant…’ Time Out.



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Sheep

James and Adèle, with their eight year old Sam, move to Wales for the winter, to do up a dilapidated farmhouse, Ty-Gwyneth. They are still reeling from the death by drowning of their daughter, Ruthie: the time in Wales should be a chance for them to recover, regroup, come together as a family.

But James starts to dig up some rather curious bones, Sam has a screaming fit in which he seems to be speaking to a previous occupant of the house, and Adèle's paintings become odd, disturbing, wrong.
A sheep is found, mutilated. Another. Sheep are found lying on the rocks below the cliff, torn open. The destruction of the beasts has begun...

'The best debut novel I have read since The Wasp Factory. Wonderful original writing glittering with savage imagery, the pages breathe the tough, dark texture of a real world, of real inescapable fears, blurring the boundaries between nightmare and reality...' Peter James

About the Author

I am a novelist living and working in Brighton, UK, in a haunted palace by the sea. I write horror/psychological thrillers as Simon Maginn: Sheep (filmed as The Dark), Virgins and Martyrs, A Sickness of the Soul, Methods of Confinement, Rattus (novella).

By night, I become Simon Nolan, who writes raucous urban comedies: As Good as it Gets, The Vending Machine of Justice, Whitehawk. I play the piano incessantly, and paint in an uncontrolled and, frankly, disgusting way.
‘Nolan is brilliant’ Time Out

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