“I've died more than once in my life. Some can spin plates on sticks, some can go around Pebble Beach at even part, but few have as many stamps in their afterlife passport as me. It's a gift, I suppose, though not one I'd wish on anyone.”

Those words are from our protagonist, Danny Orchard, and his novel The Damned. It's a follow-up to the bestseller that made him an international sensation, The After. The impetus for that book is the fact that he has died and come back to life more than once. However, it was the first time he died at age 16 that made the most impact on his life. You see, Danny and his twin sister, Ash, both perished in the same fire. The difference is that Danny came back to the world of the living but not alone.

"THE DAMNED is pure supernatural horror at its finest, and the reader will quickly learn to fear Ash like everyone else who has the misfortune of crossing her path --- in this world or the next."

Author Andrew Pyper, fresh off his International Thriller win for Best Novel of 2014 with THE DEMONOLOGIST, brings us Danny’s story in his latest release. The reader will initially feel that this is a story about someone who has had near-death experiences and the descriptions of what he saw on the other side. He not only wrote about this but actually visits groups of NDE, near-death experience victims who meet regularly to discuss their experiences much as a member of AA would.

THE DAMNED turns its focus directly on Danny's twin sister, Ash. Ash was extremely bright, popular at school, star of the high school theatrical production of “South Pacific” and on her way to a promising college career had she not been killed in a suspicious house fire. The problem is that the Ash people saw and the real person who actually existed behind her mask of humanity were completely different. To the Orchard family, Ash was a monster bordering on a demonic entity who was making their life a living hell.

Danny realizes who his sister really is and does his best to try to escape from her. On one unfortunate evening, Ash and a few of her friends go to an abandoned house that somehow catches fire, trapping her inside. She perishes in that blaze, which also claimed Danny's life when he entered the building to save her. Danny was brought back to life at the hospital and now has to live his life in perpetual fear as Ash hitchhiked on his return and continues to haunt him in every way.

Even while enjoying his success as a famous writer, Danny is stricken with a bad heart that has caused him to have more than one NDE and put him on the list for a permanent heart transplant. Each visit to “the after” seems to make Ash stronger, and now she has set her sights on Danny's new wife and stepson. Danny believes the only way to stop Ash once and for all in harming everyone he cares about is to return to the scene of their joint death --- the city of Detroit he has long left behind --- and hope that the answers he discovers will finally sate her.

The problem is that Ash is not bound by the mortal world. To truly rid himself of Ash, he must go back to “the after” and search the part of it that those who depart from this world never want to see. It is only there that Danny can put Ash to rest --- and include the experience in a new novel --- if he can survive the journey. THE DAMNED is pure supernatural horror at its finest, and the reader will quickly learn to fear Ash like everyone else who has the misfortune of crossing her path --- in this world or the next.