The Warning

A strange pattern of death emerges in a small Spanish town in this novel of twisting suspense by international bestselling author Paul Pen.

I don’t wish to frighten you, reads the anonymous note introverted and bullied eight-year-old Leo Cruz finds in his backpack. All the sender asks is that he avoid a certain spot on a certain day, or he’ll die. Leo has reason to be afraid. The warning hearkens back to nearly a decade ago—to the same site, where a murder has become local folklore and a favorite campfire tale reinvented year after year by the kids of Arenas, a small Spanish town.

Leo’s parents initially suspect the lonely boy’s cruel classmates. The perfect joke to terrorize an impressionable victim. Unless, as they come to believe, it’s Leo himself who is the author of the warning.

Is Leo being lured to an unavoidable fate? Is someone taking bullying to a dangerous new level? Or is there something else at work in Arenas, a town with intersecting destinies and a century of secrets?

Paul Pen is a bestselling Spanish author whose four novels have been translated to many languages. The Light of the Fireflies was his first book to be translated to English, selling more than one hundred thousand copies worldwide. This book was followed by Desert Flowers and Under the Water, with which he reaffirmed his unmistakable brand of literary suspense and ability to create a deeply immersive reading experience for the mind, heart and nerves. Now, his debut novel of almost ten years ago, The Warning, is being published in English for the first time, finally offering readers around the globe the chance to read a story already adapted to the big screen in 2018. Motion pictures of The Light of the Fireflies and Desert Flowers are also in development, the latter scripted by Pen himself. In his capacity as scriptwriter, Pen is working on a forthcoming Netflix series while he writes his next novel.

Simon Bruni translates literary works from Spanish, a language he acquired through total immersion living in Alicante, Valencia, and Santander. He studied Spanish and linguistics at Queen Mary University of London and literary translation at the University of Exeter.

Simon’s many published translations include novels, short stories, video games, and nonfiction publications, and he is the winner of three John Dryden awards: in 2017 and 2015 for Paul Pen’s short stories “Cinnamon” and “The Porcelain Boy,” and in 2011 for Francisco Pérez Gandul’s novel Cell 211. His translation of Paul Pen’s novel The Light of the Fireflies has sold over one hundred thousand copies worldwide.

For more information, please visit www.simonbruni.com.