The Children of the Night Award is awarded by The Dracula Society on an annual basis. Nominations are invited each January from the members for the best piece of literature in the Gothic genre - novel, short story, or biography - for the previous year.
Source: Dracula Society website, http://www.compulink.co.uk/~blackie/TDS/childrenofthenig.html
'In this tantalizing tale of Victorian ghost stories and family secrets, timid, solitary librarian Gerard Freeman lives for just two things: his elusive pen pal Alice and a story he found hidden in his mother's drawer years ago. Written by his great-grandmother Viola, it hints at his mother's role in a sinister crime. As he discovers more of Viola's chilling tales, he realizes that they might hold the key to finding Alice and unveiling his family's mystery-or will they bring him the untimely death they seem to foretell?
'Harwood's astonishing, assured debut shows us just how dangerous family skeletons-and stories-can be.' (Publication summary)