Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

C. K. McDonnell

Reviewers love Relight My Fire... 
 
'Transgressively hilarious . . . Of course there's a story that the intrepid journalists of The Stranger Times have to tease out . . . but the real joy lies in the pitfalls and pratfalls of getting there' 
DAILY MAIL 
 
'An absolute riot of a read' DAILY EXPRESS 
 
'Laugh-out-loud funny' DAILY MIRROR 
 
'I loved the dry and embedded humour of this book, it's the stuff of life' SFCROSWNEST 
 
Some comebacks can be murder . . . 
 
Stella is enjoying life as an almost student, or at least she is until a man falls from the sky right in front of her, leaving a big old hole in the pavement for Manchester Council to fill. The obvious question of how he ended up in the sky in the first place has no obvious answers, which is where The Stranger Times come in. This isn't just the hunt for another story though. Dark powers think Stella might have been involved and the only way she and the team can prove her innocence is to find out what the hell is really going on. What have dodgy gear, disturbed graves and a decommissioned rock star got to do with all this? 
 
Vincent Banecroft has problems of his own in the form of a tall, dark but-definitely-not-handsome man dressed like a one-man funeral who has been sent to make the paper's editor atone for his sins. Once he finds out exactly what that entails, Banecroft is not keen. Being banished to a Hellscape for all eternity looks like being no fun at all, not least because he has that pale Irish skin that burns really easily . . . 
 
All that plus territorial ghouls, homicidal felines, eternal (and seemingly unstoppable) gnomes and a celebrity 'Who's Who' that'd put a royal wedding to shame, and you're looking at a wild few days for The Stranger Times. 
 
Relight My Fire is the fourth adventure in the acclaimed and brilliantly funny Stranger Times series. 
 
The Stranger Times - winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Audio!

Relight My Fire

(The Stranger Times 4)

The Stranger Times - winner of the 2023 British Fantasy Award for Best Audio Work! 
 
Love can be a truly terrible thing. 
 
Marriages are tricky at the best of times, especially when one of you is dead. 
 
Vincent Banecroft, the irascible editor of The Stranger Times, has never believed his wife died despite emphatic evidence to the contrary. Now, against all odds, it seems he may actually be proved right; but what lengths will he go to in an attempt to rescue her? 
 
With Banecroft distracted, the shock resignation of assistant editor, Hannah Willis, couldn't have come at a worse time. It speaks volumes that her decision to reconcile with her philandering ex-husband is only marginally less surprising than Banecroft and his wife getting back together. In this time of crisis, is her decision to swan off to a fancy new-age retreat run by a celebrity cult really the best thing for anyone? 
 
As if that wasn't enough, one of the paper's ex-columnists has disappeared, a particularly impressive trick seeing as he never existed in the first place. 
 
Floating statues, hijacked ghosts, homicidal cherubs, irate starlings, Reliant Robins and quite possibly several deeply sinister conspiracies; all-in-all, a typical week for the staff of The Stranger Times.

Love Will Tear Us Apart

(The Stranger Times 3)

‘Fiendishly clever and monstrously funny, C K McDonnell's latest will steal your soul and eat your brain. In the nicest possible way, of course.’ TOM HOLT, author of The Portable Door and The Eight Reindeers of Christmas 
 
It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . . 
 
For most people, that means a time of celebration, relaxation and inebriation, but not for the staff of The Stranger Times. While a book club meeting ending in a triple murder isn’t unprecedented, it is at least noteworthy. It quickly emerges that this is no ordinary book-club-triple-murder either, as it features a librarian possessed by a chaotic entity who has broken through from another dimension and is hellbent on vengeance. He’s made a list, but he’s not checking it twice as the whole of humanity is on it. Who would want to summon such a thing? And how is anyone going to be able to send it back? 
 
As if that wasn’t enough to be dealing with, a shocking revelation about a member of The Stranger Times team’s past brings family together, but not in a way that’s ever going to make it into a Hallmark movie. 
 
Featuring demonically possessed Santas, blood-thirsty books and the ghost of a legendary nightclub, it’s beginning to look a lot like a Christmas apocalypse . . . 
 
Ring the Bells is the fifth book in the award-winning, critically acclaimed and laugh-out-loud funny The Stranger Times series. 
 
The reviewers loved Relight My Fire: 
 
'McDonnell's world is transgressively hilarious, grimly banal and beguilingly warm. Of course there's a story that the intrepid journalists of The Stranger Times have to tease out: grave-robbing, cryogenics, a very angry witch, and a washed-up indie legend looking for a lost album, but the real joy lies in the pitfalls and pratfalls of getting there.' DAILY MAIL 
 
'An absolute riot of a read.' DAILY EXPRESS 
 
'Laugh-out-loud funny and full of colourful characters.' DAILY MIRROR 
 
'It’s no secret that here at SciFi Towers we’re massive fans of the Stranger Times series by C. K. McDonnell.' SciFiNOW 
 
'I loved the dry and embedded humour of this book, it's the stuff of life . . . the whole thing is great fun.' SFCROSWNEST 
 
'Relight My Fire is perhaps the best since the original.' STARBURST

Ring the Bells

(The Stranger Times 5)

biblio.categories.code

biblio.publicationStatus

biblio.brand

biblio.workEditions.format

biblio.ageRange

biblio.series.seriesName

biblio.imprint.description

biblio.type

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Search Results

The Fall of the West

Hunt the Villain

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Fight or Flight (Book 21)

The Mortons

Watch a trailer for The Spook's Blood

A photograph of Ben Barnes in character for Shadow and Bone Netflix series.

Interviews

Shadow and Bone’s Ben Barnes on tear-jerking books and what he’s reading

An image showing a selection of adventure stories for 9-12 year olds on a bright yellow background with orange doodles that include a hashtag, flag, danger sign and speech bubble

Children's reading lists

16 books for 9 to 12-year-olds that love adventures

An image of a selection of books for 9-12s on a blue background with a large splodge and striped print

24 must-read books for 9-12-year-olds

A picture of several different children's books on a pink to blue ombre background; each book has a bright yellow shadow

Reading lists

The 100 best children's books of all time, as chosen by our readers

stemming

Showing results for: ‘joseph delaney’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Series

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter