COUP DE GRÂCE

IN STORES OCTOBER 1, 2024

A mindbending and visceral experimental horror about a young man trapped in an infinite Montreal subway station, perfect for readers of Mark Z. Danielewski and Susanna Clarke.

Vicken has a plan: throw himself into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal and end it all for good, believing it to be the only way out for him after a lifetime of depression and pain. But, stepping off the subway, he finds himself in an endless, looping station.

Determined to find a way out again, he starts to explore the rooms and corridors ahead of him. But no matter how many claustrophobic hallways or vast cathedral-esque rooms he passes through, the exit is nowhere in sight.

The more he explores his strange new prison, the more he becomes convinced that he hasn’t been trapped there accidentally, and amongst the shadows and concrete, he comes to realise that he almost certainly is not alone.

A terrifying psychological nightmare from a powerful new voice in horror.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
COUP DE GRÂCE

“Coup de Grâce is a harrowing exploration of the expanding labyrinth of despair and the self. Its liminal melancholy will linger. Sofia Ajram is a writer to watch." — Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts

“Relentless, terrifying, gorgeous, and perfect; one of the most powerful books I've ever been lost inside. This is a beautiful nightmare built by a genius architect and I'll be shocked if I read anything better all year." — Daniel Kraus, New York Times bestselling author of Whalefall

“An aching spectacle of bleakness and jewelled prose; Coupe de Grâce is one hell of a debut for multi-talented Sofia Ajram. " — Cassandra Khaw, USA Today bestselling author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth

“Forwarded with the funereal poetics of dream-logic but, wait: awake. And therefore, no dream, but nightmare. Still, despite the horror, Ajram’s spirited voice is as self-evident as a solitary bright hue in a wide grey world. What do we look for in books, in stories, if not signs of life? Coup de Grâce is teeming with rare life.” — Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box and Incidents Around the House

“The decision, the ride, the beautiful stranger, the end you always knew would find you - Sofia Ajram’s Coup De Grâce is wholly original and totally, despairingly, passionately alive.” — Kathe Koja, author of Dark Factory and The Cipher

"In this caustic confrontation with the self, Ajram's carefully crafted dread is a hand wrapped around your throat." — Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold

A moving and gorgeously written debut novella, Sofia Ajram’s Coup de Grâce cycles through vertigo, claustrophobia, existential dread and body horror—and yet it’s not without a sense of hope. Immersive and strange, highly recommended. — Christi Nogle, author of the Bram Stoker Award® winning first novel, Beulah

"Alienating, exquisite, and disturbing; a poem in blood and concrete. I can't recommend it enough." — Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt and Cuckoo.

“A visceral, hallucinatory meditation on illness, mental and otherwise. I haven’t read something with this much resonation since Dazai’s No Longer Human. Coup De Grâce is a bleak, philosophical look into what it means to be alive, for better or worse, where the only thing scarier than mangled monstrosities is the inexplicable world one is forced to roam simply by breathing. We’re all waiting on a train. Some smile on the benches. Some cry on the tracks.” —Scott J. Moses, author of Our Own Unique Affliction