And He Shall Appear - by Kate Van Der Borgh

About the Book

"From a mesmerizing new literary voice comes a story of obsessive friendship, chilling powers, and untimely death for readers of dark academia classics like If We Were Villains and The Secret History. An unnamed narrator arrives at Cambridge University in the early aughts determined to reinvent himself. His northern accent marks him as an outsider, but thanks to his musical gifts, he manages to fall in with his wealthy classmate, Bryn Cavendish. A charismatic party host and talented magician, Bryn enthralls the narrator. But something seems to happen to those who challenge or simply irk Bryn-and they aren't ever the same again. The narrator begins to suspect that Bryn may be concealing terrifying gifts under the guise of magic tricks. As the tension between them grows, a harrowing encounter is followed by Bryn's death. Alternating between their time as students and the narrator's return to Cambridge years later, where he fears the ghosts of his past are waiting for him, And He Shall Appear performs an astounding slight-of-hand that throws every version of the story into question. This propulsive novel about the dark power of privilege will haunt readers like a familiar piece of music with endless iterations. "--

Book Synopsis

From a mesmerizing new literary voice comes a story of obsessive friendship, chilling powers, and untimely death for readers of dark academia classics like If We Were Villains and The Secret History.

An unnamed narrator arrives at Cambridge University in the early aughts determined to reinvent himself. His northern accent marks him as an outsider, but thanks to his musical gifts, he manages to fall in with his wealthy classmate, Bryn Cavendish.

A charismatic party host and talented magician, Bryn enthralls the narrator. But something seems to happen to those who challenge or simply irk Bryn--and they aren't ever the same again.

The narrator begins to suspect that Bryn may be concealing terrifying gifts under the guise of magic tricks. As the tension between them grows, a harrowing encounter is followed by Bryn's death.

Alternating between their time as students and the narrator's return to Cambridge years later, where he fears the ghosts of his past are waiting for him, And He Shall Appear performs an astounding slight-of-hand that throws every version of the story into question.

This propulsive novel about the dark power of privilege will haunt readers like a familiar piece of music with endless iterations.

Review Quotes

"An eerie, deeply disturbing tale that is as mesmerizing as it is provocative."
--Booklist, STARRED Review

"[A] darkly glamorous debut. . . . He Shall Appear suggests that we are all unreliable narrators of our own lives, apt to see significance in all the wrong places, and vastly to overstate our importance in the minds of others. It's an insight that strikes a greater chill than any amount of gloomy staircases and creaking floorboards."--The Guardian

"The dread creeps up like a specter over your shoulder in this haunting debut that echoes notes of M. R. James down the shadowy halls of modern academia."
--Brian McAuley, author of Curse of the Reaper and Candy Cain Kills

"Unsettling and richly atmospheric, And He Shall Appear is a bacchanalian campus noir that will keep you up at night wondering what is a trick or magic, and what is it we choose not to see. I loved this tense tale of intoxication, infatuation, and friendship, where Saltburn meets TheSecret History with a wholly original splash of the occult hiding in the shadows of Cambridge."
--Aube Rey Lescure, author of River East, River West, shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024

"A darkly intricate, disturbing novel wound tightly with infatuation, devotion, and magic."
--Lucy Rose, author of forthcoming novel The Lamb

"As stunning as it is unsettling. It left me unnerved and enchanted. A contemporary gothic masterpiece."--Katy Hays, author of The Cloisters

"I devoured And He Shall Appear, a darkly glittering tale of longing, obsession, power and magic. Enthralling and genuinely unsettling, it transported me to beautiful, shadowy quads where nothing can be trusted."--Hazel Barkworth, author of Heatstroke

"Dark, disturbing, and dazzling--I was completely under its spell."--Emma van Straaten, author of This Immaculate Body

About the Author

By day, Kate van der Borgh is a freelance copywriter, and by night, she's usually composing or playing music. She grew up in Lancashire and went on to study music at Cambridge, so there's a reasonable amount of her in her narrator--including the fact that she was a pianist and reluctant bassoonist. She has, however, never had reason to suspect that her best friend has occult powers. Her short fiction has been published by The Fiction Desk, and she's a graduate of Faber's six-month Writing a Novel course. She is based in London.