THE NIGHT DENTIST: The Mouth That Wouldn’t Close

The Night Dentist is a darkly comic supernatural horror series set in the wider Winston universe, where London’s monsters have old family secrets, expensive appetites and truly appalling dental habits.

Malcolm Vane runs an after-hours clinic for patients ordinary dentists would refuse, flee from or quietly set on fire. He has a silver hand, a filthy temper and no patience for anyone who describes a six-month infection as “a recent problem.” Vampires arrive with cracked fangs and wounded pride. Werewolves turn up with broken jaws, failed transformations and bits of gate still caught between their molars. Humans come carrying cursed teeth, illegal grafts and bargains made with backstreet surgeons who accept cash because witnesses are inconvenient.

Vane treats them all. Comfort is not part of the service.

He fixes what can be fixed, removes what cannot and charges extra when someone bleeds on the good instruments. He does not praise patients for being brave after they have ignored a rotting curse until it starts speaking. He tells them what is wrong, what it will cost and which part of the problem is entirely their own fault.

Every book begins with a mouth in trouble and ends somewhere worse.

A loose fang may expose an old-family conspiracy. A bad graft may lead to a market in stolen supernatural body parts. A jaw that will not close may belong partly to someone else. A second mouth may begin feeding from inside its patient. In Vane’s clinic, pain is evidence, enamel remembers violence and the body tells the truth even when the person attached to it is lying.

The Night Dentist blends supernatural horror, body horror, gothic horror, dark urban fantasy and monster noir with occult mystery, medical horror and vicious black comedy. Its version of London is full of hidden clinics, cursed anatomy, illegal magic, vampire politics, werewolf injuries, dangerous bloodlines and back rooms that smell of clove oil, bleach and regret. The monsters are often frightened, the humans are often worse, and every miracle comes with an invoice.

The series can be read on its own, so new readers can walk straight into Vane’s clinic without reading the Winston books first. Readers of Winston the Third will recognise the same connected supernatural world, along with its old families, bad curses, sharp humour and long history of people making terrible decisions because somebody promised them power.

Each case drags Vane deeper into the criminal trade surrounding monster dentistry, occult surgery and stolen flesh. Some patients are victims. Some are predators. Most are inconveniently both. A vampire with a broken fang may be hiding a century-old crime. A werewolf desperate to repair his bite may discover that the new jaw once belonged to someone living. A human seeking protection may wake with a tooth that has started feeding through the bone beneath their eye.

Vane may be holding the pliers, but the real danger usually belongs to the person who altered the mouth before it reached his chair.

Poppy Drakaina’s Night Dentist series is written for readers who like dark fantasy with sharp teeth: supernatural crime, paranormal investigation, gothic London, vampire horror, werewolf horror, grotesque medical mysteries, cursed bodies and black humour delivered without a comforting anaesthetic. The stories mix urban fantasy horror with occult body horror, monster fiction and the grim practicalities of treating patients who might eat the receptionist.

Expect sinister dental work, cursed mouths, illegal supernatural surgery, monstrous patients, eerie investigations, sharp dialogue, bad decisions and enough body horror to make regular brushing feel like a survival skill.

If your dentist locks the door from the inside, pay attention. It may be for your safety.

It may be for everyone else’s