Midnight Doorways

Book excerpt: Birds and eerie visions haunt an orphanage for girls in Lahore. Two lovers find themselves pulled into rising floodwaters by an invisible force. A chaperone faces ancient horrors as her wards begin to disappear on a routine school trip. An opium addict narrates to a sub-inspector the story of an otherworldly woman rising from a gravestone. In seven stories that skilfully weave the mundane with the fantastic, Usman T. Malik explores the volatility of the supernatural to stunning effect. Twisted and delightfully grotesque, at once strange and familiar, these works of superlative imagination reveal the depth of timeless emotions: love and friendship that transcend all difference, greed and bigotry that lurk in every corner, and injustice and uncertainty that colour individual worlds. An acclaimed new voice in fantasy writing, Malik employs his extraordinary craft and prowess to present a collection that will thrill, enchant and terrify the reader in equal measure. WINNER OF THE 2021 CRAWFORD AWARD FROM THE IAFA (International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts)