The monster showed up after midnight. As they do.

But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming....

This monster, though, is something different. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth.

Patrick Ness spins a tale from the final story idea of Siobhan Dowd, whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself. Darkly mischievous and painfully funny, A Monster Calls is an extraordinarily moving novel about coming to terms with loss from two of our finest writers for young adults.

"Compelling...powerful and impressive." -Philip Pullman, author of the award-winning His Dark Materials trilogy

"Exceptional...this is storytelling as it should be-harrowing, lyrical, and transcendent." -Meg Rosoff, author of the Printz Award-winning novel How I Live Now

"Brilliant and elegant, with all the thrills and ambition you would expect from the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy." -Frank Cottrell Boyce, award-winning author of Millions and Cosmic

"Haunting, lyrical, powerful, and true. Patrick Ness has crafted a masterful story about grief and loss, love and hope that lingers in the heart like a ghost." -Libba Bray, author of the Printz Award-winning novel Going Bovine