MUGGINGS AND MAGIC

Book Profile
Title

Muggings and Magic

• A Parisian Dark Fantasy *

Dave Chevis

Dark Fantasy · Psychological Thriller · Travel Horror

Cinematic, tense, atmospheric
Grounded realism with creeping dread
Adult, literary, emotionally driven

A family holiday begins with a promise of magic - and ends with a lesson in survival.

Paris is beautiful.
Paris is moving.
Paris does not stop for anyone.

What begins as a carefully planned family trip - England to Paris, then onward to Disney - fractures the moment they arrive. An accommodation cancelled without warning. Streets that punish hesitation. Crowds that flow around violence without reacting.

As the family navigates backstreets, silence, and systems that don't respond, they learn an unspoken rule of the city:

Stillness makes you a target.

Muggings and Magic is a dark, atmospheric novel rooted in real experience, where fear isn't supernatural - it's environmental. The city itself becomes a presence, contrasted against the manufactured safety of Disney and the fragile comfort of places designed to protect hope.

This is not a story about monsters in the shadows.
It's about what happens when a city doesn't notice you at all.

• Survival vs tourism

• Movement as safety

• Family protection under pressure

• Illusion of beauty vs reality of danger

• Real magic vs manufactured magic

• Adult readers (18+)

• Fans of dark urban fiction

• Readers of psychological thrillers

• Travel memoir readers who like realism with edge

• Fans of atmospheric, slow-burn dread

• The Road (emotional restraint, family focus)

• Neverwhere (urban unease, city as entity)

• The Girl with All the Gifts (controlled environments vs chaos)

• Modern travel horror / psychological realism

• Implied crime and threat

• Psychological tension

• No graphic violence

• No supernatural creatures (unease is environmental)