Angels of Destruction

A mesmerising second novel from the acclaimed author of The Stolen Child.

This is a beautifully told story that's slightly eerie, compelling and sad

An intriguing, intelligent tale... Donohue creates a world both strange and surprising while also touching and compassionate

Keith Donohue is the Director of Communications for the grant-making arm of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. He has written for the New York Times and the Washington Post and is the author of the bestselling novel The Stolen Child.

Angels of Destruction is the mesmerising story of Norah, a nine-year-old girl who seems to materialise out of thin air when she arrives one bitterly cold night on the doorstep of Margaret Quinn. A widow who lives alone, Margaret has never got over the loss of her own child, a runaway called Erica who fled with her high school sweetheart, Wiley, to join a '60s-style band of West Coast revolutionaries known as Angels of Destruction. 
 
Norah becomes Margaret's secret, a child possessed of magical qualities. But who is she really? And what is her purpose here? And what is this strange child's connection to Margaret's missing daughter?

Keith Donohue

A welcome addition to the field of contemporary fantasy...sparklingly quirky.. wistfully elegiac...Overall it is a gently redemptive parable about becoming oneself

Keith Donohue evokes the otherworldly with humor and the ordinary with wonder. The Stolen Child is unsentimental and vividly imagined. I enjoyed it immensely

Utterly absorbing...Impressive...Beautiful...A luminous and thrilling novel about our humanity

A wonderful, fantasy-laden debut...a novel of great power and sadness

Seven-year-old Henry Day is kidnapped by fairy changelings living in the dark forest near his home - ageless beings whose secret community is threatened by encroaching modern life. They give Henry a new name, Aniday, and the gift of agelessness - now and forever, he will be seven years old. 
 
The group has left another child in Henry's place. This changeling boy, who has morphed himself into Henry's duplicate, must adjust to a new way of life and hide his true identity from the Day family. But he can't hide his extraordinary talent for the piano, and his near-perfect performances prompt his father to suspect that he is an impostor. 
 
As he grows older the new Henry Day becomes haunted by vague but persistent memories of life in another time and place. Both Henry and Aniday search obsessively for who they were before they changed places in the world.

Keith Donohue

Praise for The Stolen Child

A welcome addition to the field of contemporary fantasy...sparklingly quirky.. wistfully elegiac...Overall it is a gently redemptive parable about becoming oneself

Keith Donohue evokes the otherworldly with humor and the ordinary with wonder. The Stolen Child is unsentimental and vividly imagined. I enjoyed it immensely

A remarkably deep and strange read

A welcome addition to the field of contemporary fantasy...sparklingly quirky.. wistfully elegiac...Overall it is a gently redemptive parable about becoming oneself

Keith Donohue evokes the otherworldly with humor and the ordinary with wonder. The Stolen Child is unsentimental and vividly imagined. I enjoyed it immensely

A remarkably deep and strange read

A welcome addition to the field of contemporary fantasy...sparklingly quirky.. wistfully elegiac...Overall it is a gently redemptive parable about becoming oneself

Keith Donohue evokes the otherworldly with humor and the ordinary with wonder. The Stolen Child is unsentimental and vividly imagined. I enjoyed it immensely

A remarkably deep and strange read

Books by Keith Donohue

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter