Once

James Herbert

May 2011 · Pan Macmillan

About this ebook

Remember the faery stories you were told as a child? Tales of tiny, magical, winged beings and elves, wicked witches and goblins. Demons . . .

What if one day you found out they were true? What if, when you became an adult, you discovered they were all based on fact? What if you met the fantasy and it was all so very real?

That's what happened to Thom Kindred. The wonders were revealed to him. But so were the horrors, for not far behind the Good, there always lurks the Bad. And the Bad had designs on Thom. The Bad would show him real evil. He would see the hellhagges and the demons. He would be touched by perverted passion. And corruption. And he would encounter his own worst nightmare. The Bad would seek to destroy him. And only the magic of the little beings would be able to help him.

Once, James Herbert's masterful novel of erotic love and darkest horror, will take you to a realm where fantasy and reality collide, where faerytales really can come true.

Ratings and reviews

As a lover of horror more than fantasy this wasn't quite as gripping as it could be. Although not averse to fantasy the elements of this (elves, fairies etc) aren't really my thing. However I did enjoy the book albeit a tad slow in places, it's well written and has a flow to it. There are massively sexual tones to this with some descriptions verging on lewd but there is a point to them (I think!). For fantasy lovers this is definitely a must read. For more casual readers maybe not.

Once is a captivating novel that you just can't stop reading. It triggers the imagination as you never expected possible. I hope someone sees the value to turn this into a movie for the non readers as it is an absolute must.

Whilst the skeleton plot is fairly standard, the flesh of this book is with rich with fantastical detail and drama. A must for any fans of magic realism and adult fairy stories.

About the author

James Herbert was not just Britain’s number one bestselling writer of chiller fiction, a position he held ever since publication of his first novel, but was also one of our greatest popular novelists. Widely imitated and hugely influential, his twenty-three novels have sold more than fifty-four million copies worldwide, and have been translated into over thirty languages, including Russian and Chinese. In 2010, he was made the Grand Master of Horror by the World Horror Convention and was also awarded an OBE by the Queen for services to literature. His final novel was Ash. James Herbert died in March 2013.