The British Fantasy Society brings you a special guest interview with multiple best-selling author Dean Koontz. Interview conducted by BFS Chair Shona Kinsella, Wednesday 21st June 2026, 7pm (GMT).

“Dean Koontz is not just a master of our darkest dreams, but also a literary juggler.” — The Times

Dean Koontz (he/him): The author of over 120 novels, Dean Koontz is published in 38 countries and has sold an incredible 500 million copies to date. His masterful suspense thrillers which blend science fiction, horror, crime and comedy have earned him worldwide acclaim – and 14 hardback #1 NYT bestsellers – and have inspired countless younger novelists.

Dean won an Atlantic Monthly fiction competition when he was a senior in college and has been writing ever since. Fourteen of his novels have risen to number one on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list (One Door Away From Heaven, From the Corner of His Eye, Midnight, Cold Fire, The Bad Place, Hideaway, Dragon Tears, Intensity, Sole Survivor, The Husband, Odd Hours, Relentless, What the Night Knows, and 77 Shadow Street), making him one of only a dozen writers ever to have achieved that milestone. Sixteen of his books have risen to the number one position in paperback. His books have also been major bestsellers in countries as diverse as Japan and Sweden. Many of his books have been made into films.

Dean lives in Southern California with Gerda and their golden retriever, Elsa. Dean and Gerda share a deep love of dogs. The New York Times has called his writing “psychologically complex, masterly and satisfying.”

Dean’s latest book, The Friend of the Family, releases on 20th January 2026. 

A girl liberated from a carnival sideshow discoverd her mysterious purpose in a moving fable about family, sacrifice, and transcendent love by #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz.

The human ‘oddities’ in the Museum of the Strange are less wondrous than the gawking rubes had been promised. But Alida is something else. The real thing. Travelling Depression-era America from carnival midways to speakeasies, Alida is resigned to an exploited and lonely life on the road as the museum’s golden ticket. Until she’s rescued by two compassionate strangers. Franklin and Loretta Fairchild see in Alida a gifted and uncannily well-read girl in need of a loving touch and a family. With the openhearted couple and their three precociously imaginative children, Alida finds exactly that. Yet despite everyone’s overwhelming generosity and acceptance, Alida knows she is still a very different kind of girl. Her dreams bear that out. They’re vivid, unsettling, and threatening. Alida fears that they’re also warnings. And that it’s the Fairchilds who may need rescue from a bad, bad world. Alida will do anything to help those she now holds nearest and dearest. Empowered with a purpose to vanquish evil, she will not fail her family.

Find out more about Dean on his website. Or follow him on Instagram or Twitter. Pre-order your copy of The Friend of the Family here.

Shona Kinsella (she/her): Shona Kinsella is a Scottish author of mythic fantasy. Her works include Daughters of Nicnevin, The Heart of Winter, Petra MacDonald and the Queen of the Fae, The Flame and the Flood, and non-fiction Outlander and the Real Jacobites: Scotland’s Fight for the Stuarts. Her short fiction can be found in various magazines and anthologies. Shona was the editor of the British Fantasy Society’s fiction publication BFS Horizons for four years and is now the Chair of the Society. She has been shortlisted for four British Fantasy Awards. She lives near Loch Lomond with her husband and children.

Find out more about Shona on her website. Or you can follow her on Facebook and Bluesky. Books: Daughters of Nicnevin; Heart of Winter; Petra MacDonald; Flame & Flood; Outlander/Real Jacobites.