Walker Books signs three middle-grade horror titles from Christopher Edge in six-figure deal

Walker Books has secured three titles in a new middle-grade horror fiction series from bestselling author Christopher Edge as part of a six-figure deal.

Senior editor Frances Taffinder acquired world rights in all languages from Lucy Juckes at Jenny Brown Associates. The first book in the series is set to publish in October 2025 with "a major campaign to celebrate the new series launch and this exciting new strand for Christopher’s fiction with Walker Books", the publisher said. Walker US will follow with a North American launch in the spring of 2026.  

Fear Files will be a series of stand-alone, accessible titles for lower middle-grade readers, each a fictional first-person account of a young person’s encounter with the unexplainable. Taken from a mysterious database called the "Darkive", each book will recount these eerie experiences and share "evidence" in the form of audio transcripts, video descriptions, screenshots and drawings.  

Walker said: "The immersive stories presented in the Fear Files series will have contemporary real-world settings, with their subject matter drawing on the fears of nine-to-11-year olds. Fear Files will include both traditional supernatural phenomena, such as ghosts and cursed objects, as well as more modern paranormal entities and anomalies that reflect 21st-century fears, providing young readers with age-appropriate scares as an antidote to the freely accessible, and often inappropriate, internet horror they can encounter online."  

Walker added: “Fear Files marks the start of a new and exciting venture for Christopher Edge, as he brings his critically acclaimed writing to accessible, shorter series fiction. The series will open up a new readership for the bestselling author and allow them access to Christopher’s unique imagination, compelling storytelling and gripping plots.”  

Edge said: “When I discovered the Darkive I felt a shiver of pure fear run down my spine as I read through its first-hand accounts of spooky encounters with mysterious entities and ghostly phenomena, and as I studied the evidence contained in each file, I started to wonder if these first encounters with fear could actually be real. I’d like to thank the brave team at Walker for helping me to bring the Fear Files to light and I hope young readers enjoy the thrilling scares in these stories and this series helps them to face their own fears.”  

Taffinder said: “We are hugely excited to publish Fear Files and to welcome the very talented Christopher to our fiction list at Walker Books. He is an incredibly inventive author, and his ability to connect with his readers is second to none. We can’t wait for them to dive into these deliciously spooky, pacy and immersive books. Prepare to be scared.”