Strange Toys

Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award. At the age of nine, Pet is struggling to protect her family from the horrors predicted in her older sister’s book of secrets – horrors that indeed come true. At sixteen, Pet is hunting down her sister to wreak vengeance. At thirty, Pet attains strength and power enough to protect her from the present – but not from her sister’s raging past. With humour, insight, compassion and unrelenting suspense, Patricia Geary’s Strange Toys takes the reader on parallel tours into the world of the supernatural, and into the life of a young woman struggling to make peace with the known and the unknown. Praise for Patricia Geary: ‘Told with the skill of a master storyteller’ - MacDonald Harris ‘If, like me, you long for stories that make you deeply uneasy, not because of some dim fog of evil or some gross nightmare monster but rather because of the power of real people to hurt and disturb each other, then have I got a book for you. Strange Toys is about a girl named Pet and her relationship with her fat sister June (who always calls her fat), their elaborate imaginary life with their toys, and the equally imaginary life of their odd parents, Stan and Linwood. It is not, however, the eccentricities of these people that won me over – it is their absolute believability . . . You will love these people; they will break your heart.’ - Fantasy and Science Fiction ‘Beautifully written . . . Geary writes of the world of childhood with authenticity, sympathy and an almost perfect ear.’ - The Washington Post ‘A remarkably vivid writer.’ - Fantasy Review Patricia Geary is a native of Southern California. She is presently serving as Writer in Residence at the University of California at Irvine. STRANGE TOYS is her second novel.

About the Author

Patricia Geary teaches at the University of Redlands and is the author of three highly acclaimed novels, Living in Ether, Strange Toys, and Guru Cigarettes, and the novella, The Other Canyon. She also practices yoga in Redlands, California, where she lives with her husband, Jack, and son, Denis. Strange Toys is the winner of the 1987 Philip K. Dick Award.

Reviews

News