Sam Kates: 13 books

Three short stories that share a common theme: the search for lost loved ones. In Strange Shores, a schoolteacher hits upon a drastic method of attempting to escape the sadness of his existence in this world. Joy or despair may be found in Alfonso's Looking Glass. A bereaved husband...

Apocalypse unleashed. Swift and deadly. Merciless. Seven billion people inhabit this planet in blissful ignorance of imminent annihilation. Destruction comes, not from meteors or nuclear holocaust, but from a source no one even knows exists. The architects of doom have long moved among...

An ordinary elevator. An ordinary morning. Matt steps into the elevator, wanting only to reach his workspace, and coffee, on the Sixth Floor. Three more people enter and the elevator ascends. Another dreary day in the office, they think. Until the door slides open… What greets Matt...

A deadly infatuation. Apocalypse. A haunted hotel. These are what you'll meet if you dare to venture inside. How would you react if you came across someone who claimed he caused the end of humankind? This is the question Jake must answer in The Third Coming, the story that spawned the Earth...

Unnatural calm. A silent storm gathers. Extinction beckons. Survivors from mainland Europe and North America converge on Britain. Weary, confused, all come seeking answers; many come spoiling for a fight. What began with the Cleansing, and was hastened by the Beacon, nears fruition....

A post-viral planet. Annihilation approaches. Tom Evans and Ceri Lewis occupy a silent new world. Little more than a million people survived the Cleansing. They are spread out, weak, compelled by a force beyond their comprehension to remain where they are. Humankind teeters on the brink, its...

You'll wish you'd taken the stairs. In Book 1, Matt and three others step into an unremarkable elevator, intent only on reaching their offices, but all thoughts of work are driven from their minds the moment the door slides open. Thus begins a day that will change the lives of all four reluctant...

Face your demons. Save humankind. A future hangs in the balance. Many futures. Only one person has the power to prevent it all unravelling and he can't do it alone. Aided by companions old and new, Jack returns to the near shore. Foes must be faced, fears conquered. But for humanity...

An eerie calm. Chaos lurks. A land inhabited by people from distant places and times. A land of meadow and forest, where to leave the trail is to court death. A land where the Scourgers roam. In an apparently selfless act to save their lives and perform the task set by the Lord of the...

Paradise isn't all it's cracked up to be. Unlucky in love, unlucky in life, Quirke yearns for something more. That indefinable, elusive something. In his role as a prison counsellor, he meets Seff, an enigmatic convict who hints at an earthly Paradise, a place where Quirke may find his...

When war ends, terror begins. A fist fight that reverberates down the years. A family devastated by war. A flight from despair. John Andrews leaves industrial Newcastle for a remote village in post-war Cornwall. A village of reclusive inhabitants, where the birds don't sing. A village...

Four festive tales of the supernatural, apocalyptic and blood-sucking variety—an antidote for anyone who occasionally finds Christmas overly sentimental or commercialised and likes to escape to somewhere darker. In Ghosts of Christmas Past, a newly-wed couple spend every Christmas in the...

Guilt. The heaviest burden. An old man has for many years borne a weight that runs deeper than survivor's guilt. He is a survivor, of humanity's darkest hour, but wouldn't have lived through it if not for the actions of another. Now he has the opportunity for which he has long yearned:...