The Croning

Laird Barron

May 2012 · Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Strange things exist on the periphery of our existence, haunting us from the darkness looming beyond our firelight. Black magic, weird cults and worse things loom in the shadows. The Children of Old Leech have been with us from time immemorial. And they love us... Donald Miller, geologist and academic, has walked along the edge of a chasm for most of his nearly eighty years, leading a charmed life between endearing absent-mindedness and sanity-shattering realization. Now, all things must converge. Donald will discover the dark secrets along the edges, unearthing savage truths about his wife Michelle, their adult twins, and all he knows and trusts. For Donald is about to stumble on the secret... ...of The Croning. From Laird Barron, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation, comes The Croning, a debut novel of cosmic horror.

Ratings and reviews

Don't understand how anyone could give this book one star. This book will capture your imagination as well as challenge your vocabulary. I love the dark retelling of Rumpelstiltskin done in such a way as if these are the events that sparked the children's story. This isn't your grandmother's Rumpelstiltskin. Anyone finding themselves "slogging" through this book clearly needs to develop a relationship with a dictionary...

I read everything I buy and I could not slog thru this. Omg boring.

About the author

Laird Barron was born in Alaska, where he raised and trained huskies for many years. He moved to the Pacific Northwest in the mid ’90s and began to concentrate on writing poetry and fiction. His award-nominated work has appeared in Sci Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and has been reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Year’s Best Fantasy 6, and Best New Fantasy: 2005. Mr. Barron currently resides in Olympia, Washington, and is hard at work on many projects.