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Post by allthingshorror on May 7, 2009 11:39:37 GMT
Nightmares 1 by Kay Wilson, Nightmares 2 and 3 by John HigginsNightmares (1983)Alison Prince - The Chicken Ian Stratton Rice - Hobscabs Sydney J Bounds - Something Nasty Wendy Eyton - Miss Flewitt, Miss Webb and Miss Bone Roger Malisson - The Holiday Makers Rosemary Timperley - The Hat Lucy M. Boston - Curfew Tony Richards -The Brother Mary Danby - SlugsNightmares 2 (1984)Alan W. Lear - Gruesome Celia Fremlin - The Baby-Sitter Alison Prince - The Loony Alan Temperley - Evening Flight Terry Tapp - Heads and Tails August Derleth - The Lonesome Place Phillip C. Heath - Creepers Johnny Yen - The Runaways Mary Danby - Arbor DayNightmares 3 (1985)Anthony Bennett - Clifftops Johnny Yen - Barnacles Alan W. Lear - Dead Letter Sydney J Bounds - House of Horror Samantha Lee - The Diary Roger Malisson - Shadow of the Rope Brian Mooney - Joplin's Phillip C. Heath - The Shaft Mary Danby - Old WiggieIt seems that the artist John Higgins also goes under the name of Kay Wilson as he has listed all three titles as being done by him: From www.turmoilcolour.com1984 Nightmares #1 (Armada) Writer: Mary Danby (ed.) Art: [glow=red,2,300]JBH[/glow] Anthology: [glow=red,2,300]Illustrations by JBH [/glow] 1984 Oct Nightmares #2 (Armada) Writer: Mary Danby (ed.) Art: JBH Anthology: Illustrations by JBH 1984 Nightmares #3 (Armada) Writer: Mary Danby (ed.) Anthology: Illustrations by JBH Have emailed him to ask if Kay Wilson is him, and if there are any other Wilson covers out there.
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Post by carolinec on May 7, 2009 12:45:06 GMT
That first cover image reminds me of something I ate at McDonalds the other week!
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Post by dem on May 7, 2009 22:19:12 GMT
I think Mary Danby - and, come to that, Christine Barnard - had a better handle on the young peoples' ghost and horror stories than Chetwynd-Hayes who seemed to revert to goo goo talk when writing for his Armada Monsters series. I don't have Nightmares, but i'd not be surprised if some of the contributions could've made it into the grown up Fontana Ghost/ Horror books with nobody being any the wiser that they were conceived as childrens' fiction. The Alison Prince story in #2, The Loony was revived by Ramsey Campbell for Uncanny Banquet and unspeakably grim it is too.
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Post by allthingshorror on May 8, 2009 7:38:45 GMT
I think Mary Danby - and, come to that, Christine Barnard - had a better handle on the young peoples' ghost and horror stories than Chetwynd-Hayes who seemed to revert to goo goo talk when writing for his Armada Monsters series. I don't have Nightmares, but i'd not be surprised if some of the contributions could've made it into the grown up Fontana Ghost/ Horror books with nobody being any the wiser that they were conceived as childrens' fiction. The Alison Prince story in #2, The Loony was revived by Ramsey Campbell for Uncanny Banquet and unspeakably grim it is too. It's certainly the case with Danby's Arbor Day from Frightners 2 where a young school girl meets a rather horrifying end courtesy of The Green Man, who looks rather dashing by the way: She shrieked, but the band was playing a noisy gallop, and no one heard her. She pulled away from him but his grip grew harder. Slowly she was being dragged along the path into Baxter's Copse...... She screamed for the last time, and then damp leaves were in her mouth, and her legs and arms were held fast by wormlike tendrils that snaked around her body. She felt her feet being torn down into the earth and her skin began to dry up, to darken and crack. Agonizing pain took over her body. Sharp green shoots sprouted viciously from her face, her shoulders, out through her hair. Her sight began to fade. In her last moments of human existence she could clearly see the true nature of this handsome stranger...the man who stood so piitlessly before her was a terrifying figure of power and vengeance. This, then, was the Green Man.And you expect kids to love trees after reading this?
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 8, 2012 23:29:14 GMT
I've started working my way through Mary Danby's Nightmares trilogy, and the first volume doesn't disappoint. The nine stories cover a wide range of styles and themes. Lucy M. Boston's Curfew is an old-fashioned story about a family that unwisely unearths an old grave and even more unwisely rings a supposedly cursed bell. Meanwhile, Sydney Bounds' Something Nasty involves giant zero-gravity rats living in the bowels of a space station.
Wendy Eyton's Miss Felwitt, Miss Webb, and Miss Bone, about a family's unplanned stay at the home of four old sharp-toothed ladies who love drinking "tomato juice" and watching "Sam Peckinpod" (?) movies, takes a relatively light tone (I'm not certain why Mrs. Gore-Knightley didn't get title billing). On the other hand, Tony Richards' The Brother, about a boy's sinister imaginary sibling, is relentlessly bleak.
Other monsters on display include the malicious closet monster from Ian Stratton Rice's Hobscabs and the telepathic space-traveling spiders from Roger Malisson's The Holiday-Makers.
As is often the case with her anthologies, Danby herself contributes one of the highlights. Here, it's Slugs, the tale of two feuding brothers who compete to see who can kill more of the slugs destroying their crops. One evening, the slugs strike back.
I always look forward to reading Alison Prince's work, and The Chicken lives up to her high standards while adding some atypical gore. As V2 rockets rain down on London, a young girl witnesses two bloody beheadings. First, she watches her creepy neighbor wring the head of a chicken right off. Next, she sees a bird of a different feather decapitated.
My personal favorite, however, may be Rosemary Timperly's The Hat, in which a group of children resolve to discover what a mysterious woman looks like without her omnipresent hat. Needless to say, they come to regret their decision.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 12, 2012 23:18:11 GMT
Nightmares 2 lives up to Danby's usual high standards. For me, the high points are the Prince and Danby tales mentioned previously in the thread, followed by Tapp's entry. All three are pitch black. Alan W. Lear - GruesomeStrange, morbid Barney Wilson dares Kevin, his only friend, to visit the Wilson family mortuary in the dead of night. Unbeknownst to Kevin, Barney is planning to play a trick on him. Unbeknownst to Barney, Kevin has a weak heart. Celia Fremlin - The Baby-SitterNot to be confused with Alison Prince’s story of the same name in Nightmares. This time around, the new baby-sitter in question is creepy old Mrs. Hahn. Her young charge is Sally, who has been waking up screaming from nightmares about “the Hen with Great Big Eyes.” Out on the town for the evening, Sally’s mother develops a premonition of terrible danger. She finally persuades her husband that they should rush home . . . Alison Prince - The LoonyOne of Prince’s finest tales, later anthologized by Ramsey Campbell in Uncanny Banquet. Never bet on one of her protagonists remaining sane by the story’s end. Alan Temperley - Evening FlightRobert decides to go shooting in the marshes with the evening mist rolling in, by himself, while drunk. Let's just say that he's never read any Jack London. Terry Tapp - Heads and TailsJack and Nellie’s mother is dead, with pennies on her eyes. In short order, the brother and sister find themselves evicted. With no job, no money, and nothing else to do, they follow the cartman who took away their mother’s corpse. He turns out to be a particularly rapacious fellow, and he devises a new job for the children: helping him catch rats in the city sewer. About as bleak a children’s story as I’ve seen. August Derleth - The Lonesome PlaceThe only pre-1980s story in the anthology, this is Derleth at his moodiest and least formulaic. Phillip C. Heath - CreepersStephen is terrified by the ivy creeping up to his window, but no one believes him when he says that it attacked him. Then again, nobody else knows about the unintentionally fatal “accident” that he inflicted upon the gardener who planted it. Unfortunately for Stephen, a fall from a tree leaves him temporarily paralyzed—and a sitting duck for the ivy. Johnny Yen - The RunawaysAn elderly couple visits Don's pub. At first he thinks they're escapees from a retirement home, but what's up with the foul smell? Mary Danby - Arbor DayI’m an easy mark for stories about pagan rituals in sleepy towns (see also The Wicker Man and Harvest Home). Here, the ritual is Arbor Day, and legend has it that the Green Man will take horrible revenge on anyone who fails to observe protocol. Our young heroine, Lisa, has been selected once again to be a leaf maiden, whereas her enemy—the vain, vapid, Stephanie—gets to be the Green Lady. In a fit of pique Lisa secretly desecrates her rival’s headdress. The spirit of the forest inflicts a creatively harsh punishment for the departure from tradition—but upon whom? This may be my new favorite Danby story.
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Post by patblack on Jan 8, 2014 20:38:32 GMT
Such a terrific series - enjoyed them just as much as an adult as I did when I was a kid. Arbor Day is a real standout and one of Mary Danby's best, but I enjoyed Clifftops in the third volume, too. There were rarely any cute, easy endings in the stories and most of the characters came to sticky, unfair ends. "Kowlongo Plaything" author Alan Temperley pops up, too!
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Post by dem on Mar 9, 2014 16:45:59 GMT
I've started working my way through Mary Danby's Nightmares trilogy, and the first volume doesn't disappoint. The nine stories cover a wide range of styles and themes. Lucy M. Boston's Curfew is an old-fashioned story about a family that unwisely unearths an old grave and even more unwisely rings a supposedly cursed bell. Meanwhile, Sydney Bounds' Something Nasty involves giant zero-gravity rats living in the bowels of a space station. Wendy Eyton's Miss Felwitt, Miss Webb, and Miss Bone, about a family's unplanned stay at the home of four old sharp-toothed ladies who love drinking "tomato juice" and watching "Sam Peckinpod" (?) movies, takes a relatively light tone (I'm not certain why Mrs. Gore-Knightley didn't get title billing). On the other hand, Tony Richards' The Brother, about a boy's sinister imaginary sibling, is relentlessly bleak. Other monsters on display include the malicious closet monster from Ian Stratton Rice's Hobscabs and the telepathic space-traveling spiders from Roger Malisson's The Holiday-Makers. As is often the case with her anthologies, Danby herself contributes one of the highlights. Here, it's Slugs, the tale of two feuding brothers who compete to see who can kill more of the slugs destroying their crops. One evening, the slugs strike back. I always look forward to reading Alison Prince's work, and The Chicken lives up to her high standards while adding some atypical gore. As V2 rockets rain down on London, a young girl witnesses two bloody beheadings. First, she watches her creepy neighbor wring the head of a chicken right off. Next, she sees a bird of a different feather decapitated. My personal favorite, however, may be Rosemary Timperly's The Hat, in which a group of children resolve to discover what a mysterious woman looks like without her omnipresent hat. Needless to say, they come to regret their decision. a few copies from the series turned up down on my friend the back of the van man's stall down the market this morning, so good thing I dragged my carcass along. Not sure if it's just that i lost my mojo recently, but nothing seems to be grabbing me like it should, though Mr. Tremayne's Angelus! came close. Mary Danby (ed.) - Nightmares (Armada, 1983) Alison Prince - The Chicken Ian Stratton Rice - Hobscabs Sydney J Bounds - Something Nasty Wendy Eyton - Miss Flewitt, Miss Webb and Miss Bone Roger Malisson - The Holiday Makers Rosemary Timperley - The Hat Lucy M. Boston - Curfew Tony Richards -The Brother Mary Danby - SlugsBlurb: Don't read this book If you’re afraid of rats and spiders . . . If you can’! stand the sight of blood . . . If you won‘t go to sleep with the wardrobe dour open...
But if you're made of sterner stuff, dare yourself to try these fiendish horror tales - every one a nightmare of shuddersome fun . . .Alison Prince - The Chicken: Young Jenny Martin doesn't know which is worse; the V-8 rockets devastating Surrey or her slobbering neighbour, Mrs. Apps, who takes hideous glee in wringing the necks of chicken until their heads come off. A nasty build up and ghastly imagery but, for once, Alison Prince pulls her punch just when you think the perverted old bat is going to die really horribly. Sydney J Bounds - Something Nasty: Rob Nolan challenges fellow cadet Kim Ball to spend six hours in the space station junkyard, reputedly the hunting ground of something so nasty as to drive men insane with terror. Kim finds himself at the mercy of monstrous mutant rats. Again, just as things are getting interesting, an interfering, do-gooder robot, tossed out with the trash, ruins everything. Rosemary Timperley - The Hat: The children have never seen the grey old woman hatless. After stalking and spying on her around the clock to no avail, one night Bob, Rosie and the rest confront her on the cliff-top and demand she remove her headgear .... Roger Malisson - The Holiday Makers: "We are able to eat almost anything." The spiders in Stuart's attic are extra-terrestrials accessing Earth's suitability as a holiday resort. Of course, they will have to decimate the puny human population, but it's a definite doable. Stuart threatens to inform the police! The arachnids, who laugh in the face of such feeble resistance, prepare to unleash Death by doom, etc.
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Post by mcannon on Mar 9, 2014 21:52:43 GMT
Now _that's_ what I call a great cover for a kids' anthology! I'm sure that budding young horror readers would have absolutely loved it. I suspect the chances of something like that being used on such an anthology these days would be less than zero......
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Post by dem on Mar 10, 2014 6:19:51 GMT
Now _that's_ what I call a great cover for a kids' anthology! I'm sure that budding young horror readers would have absolutely loved it. I suspect the chances of something like that being used on such an anthology these days would be less than zero...... A decent selection, too; its possible the Nightmares were intended as a bridge between the Armada Ghost Books and Mary Danby's excellent two-volume Frighteners for Fontana. Lucy M. Boston - Curfew: "It was called the Judas bell, but where it originally came from and who betrayed what I don't know. It was the old curfew and, of course, if people are out when they ought to be in, things are likely to happen to them. The old people around here say the bell had a 'familiar'. The last person who rang it was my great grandfather, who did it for a wager. And it is a fact that he was found dead. Rather horribly dead. And then the bell was taken down and destroyed." The most accomplished story in the collection - any M. R. James fan will tell you that! Begins with the disturbance of a grave and its ghastly occupant during work in Uncle Tom and Aunt Catherine's garden, and slips into gear when Tom purchases the old bell tower from neighbouring Abbey Manor. Of course, now all that's required is for some fool to dredge the stream, retrieve the rusty old bell and restore it to the tower. Uncle Tom is that fool. The Judas bell makes the most appalling din, not dissimilar to a human scream. Rather than deprive everyone of their sleep, Uncle climbs the steps to silence it .... Mary Danby - Slugs: A third 'nature is revolting' story, and, as with Something Nasty and The Holiday-Makers, its a bit ridiculous. Brothers Jed and Sam Burdock disagree about everything, so when a colony of slugs invade Dunn Farm, they each insist they have the solution to the crisis. The slugs prove them wrong. Ian Stratton Rice - Hobscabs: Little Michael Keating is tormented by a particularly spiteful shape-shifting demon who can't wait to get him in bed at night. Father thinks the boy is a wet and a weed plus a clot, but Gran realises the severity of the situation and intervenes on Michael behalf. Who will ultimately triumph?
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Post by dem on Mar 20, 2014 8:33:47 GMT
Wendy Eyton's Miss Felwitt, Miss Webb, and Miss Bone, about a family's unplanned stay at the home of four old sharp-toothed ladies who love drinking "tomato juice" and watching "Sam Peckinpod" (?) movies, takes a relatively light tone (I'm not certain why Mrs. Gore-Knightley didn't get title billing). On the other hand, Tony Richards' The Brother, about a boy's sinister imaginary sibling, is relentlessly bleak. Wendy Eyton - Miss Felwitt, Miss Webb, and Miss Bone. Brash Americans Virgil, Lucille and son Hal Macpherson, plan on spending Christmas in Scotland, land of Virgil's ancestors, but first they must survive an unscheduled night's stay at a cottage in the Pennines, home to four white-haired, red-lipped old dears who reckon little Hal is too succulent for words. As CB mentions, this is dead harmless, jokey tosh, minus any proper misery, but, happily, the same cannot be said for this next and final story, a strong best-of-book contender. Tony Richards - The Brother: Mrs Dean promises little Charley that he'll soon have a little brother to share his bunk-bed, only to lose the baby. Charley is so distressed at being lied to, he wills a replacement. Charley and his tulpa are thick as thieves until - another miracle; defying the best brains of the medical profession, Mum falls pregnant again! This time the baby survives, but murderously jealous, imaginary brother detests the new arrival. Mary Danby (ed.) - Nightmares 2 (Armada, 1984) Blurb Beware of this book... It's about rats ... and corpses ... and monsters that lurk in dark alleys ... and things that go `aargh!' in the night ... Are you brave enough to read it? Then come on in — and help yourself to horror!Vol 2, which, as we're aware, includes at least two proper horror gems in The Looney and Arbor Day, gets off to a great start when we're introduced to the school freak. Alan W. Lear - Gruesome: Eleven year old Barney Williams, son of the local undertaker, is too creepy for his classmates - once the novelty of knowing such a macabre weirdo wears off, so too does his appeal. Kevin is the closest Barney has to a pal, but even he finds him "too gruesome." Barney retorts that Kevin ain't gruesome enough, and dares/ blackmails him into spending the night at his dad's workplace as a 'welcome to my world' initiation. Let's hope Kevin's notoriously weak ticker is up to the challenge, eh kids? Celia Fremlin - The Baby-Sitter: Daphne realises she's being overprotective of her four year old daughter, but dash it all, Sally is sensitive and lately she's suffered horrible nightmares about "the chicken with great big eyes!" Also, whatever Tim says, there's something not right about Mrs. Hahn the baby-sitter. Daphne doesn't like her startling hair sculpture for one minute, and Sally is clearly frightened of her. Tim ushers his nervy wife to the theatre regardless, but all she can think of is "what's happening indoors?" Not as effective as Gruesome by any stretch, but suspenseful until it ends in crushing disappointment. Better is the slightly incongruous Johnny Yen - The Runaways: Mischievous old timers Sydney and Jessie would rather spend their Monday lunchtime supping pints of Stout in The Lamb & Ox over yet another dreary day rotting in the "retirement home" at Flaxley village. So they make a break for it. Don the landlord ain't too taken by their seeming aversion to deodorant but the pub needs all the trade it can get.
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Post by dem on Mar 21, 2014 15:34:51 GMT
Terry Tapp - Heads and Tails: Jack and Nellie, penniless orphans on the death of their mother, are cast onto the streets to fend for themselves. Fortunately, the carts-man who removed their Ma's corpse is looking for two such gullibles to exploit, and has them accompany him down in the sewer to gather rats (the young toffs pay handsomely for plump ones to use in bloodsports). Played commendably, depressingly straight Heads And Tails would slot nicely in Chetwynd-Hayes' Gaslit Tales Of TerrorAlan Temperley - Evening Flight: This reads like something the author decided maybe wasn't quite vicious enough for the Pan Book Of Horror, though its certainly grim - case in point, the lingering description of a dead sheep. Anyway, meet Robert Trenchyard, seventeen, champion athlete, top scholar, head boy of Friary Grammer. And spoiled rotten. This evening, Robert is enjoying a duck shoot on the mud flats of the Solway - in fact, he's just bagged his first goose! Pity our boy genius is so crap at reading a compass. The mists descend. The going gets squelchy underfoot ... August Derleth - The Lonesome Place: As kids, the narrator and best pal Jimmy Newell would scare each other silly with tales of the bogeyman haunting the dark stretch of land between the sheds, lumber piles and mighty oaks at the grain elevator. Now grown to adulthood, the terrible demon of their imaginations has manifested into child-mangling reality. Phillip C. Heath - Creepers: Stephen McAllister's casual persecution of Mr. Sharpe the grouchy gardener ends in tragedy when the youth arranges for a trifling "accident" to befall the old timer. But Mr. Sharpe liked to talk to his plants, the ivy in particular, and they are not about to let the little sod get away with murder.
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Post by dem on Mar 22, 2014 7:21:36 GMT
Mary Danby (ed.) - Nightmares 3 (Armada, 1985) Blurb Do you scare easily? Then stay away from these tales of terror and torment ... of ghosts and vampires ... murder and monsters... But if you like to feel your blood curdling as the chill hand of horror clutches at your heart... then read on and treat yourself to a feast of fright!Anthony Bennett - Clifftops: Something deathly lurks in the caverns beneath the hotel - a former boarder and his colony of vampires. With 'Clifftops' shut for the season and his parents out gallivanting, for the first time Jonathan has the place all to himself - or so, in his blissful innocence, he believes. Johnny Yen - Barnacles: Gary and his father winkling on the shore at Flamborough Head, Yorkshire. Gary is rubbish at it, and takes out his frustration on the barnacles, crushing entire communities of helpless Crustacea under rocks. What larks! Eventually tiring of the massacre, Gary decides to paddle out to sea for a swim ..... Sydney J Bounds - House of Horror: Seeking the approval of Toby Bullivant and cronies Hog and Sue, thirteen year old Mark, the new kid in Northend, agrees to undergo the initiation test - a midnight visit to the local, garbage strewn haunted house. Yet another negative reference to a black leather jacket (modelled by Hog') - Syd really didn't like them! House Of Horror is good fun as far as it goes, but there is a very obvious and far nastier ending screaming to be written. Mary Danby - Old Wiggie: Old Miss Wigan of Laburnum Cottage is locally despised as a witch. Sally the paper-girl is particularly wary of her, but an illness to Mum sees to it that, come Halloween she must call on Old Wiggie to collect her week's money. Really, the poor woman is probably just lonely and perhaps a bit scatty, but a witch? They are phoney and don't exist! How true. Escaped lunatics, however, are another matter ....
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Post by dem on Mar 23, 2014 9:11:22 GMT
Roger Malisson - Shadow Of The Rope: Novice actor Mike is plays victim Tommy Briggs opposite John Pocklington-Jones' creepy 'Mad Jack' Hatchbury in a TV dramatisation of a fifty year old murder. To add a veneer of authenticity, their scenes are shot on location at the house where Tommy met his end. Mr. Pocklington-Jones' gets a little too caught up in the spirit of the production ..... Phillip C. Heath - The Shaft: Two bored pupils at the Missouri Military School explore the disused elevator shaft in 'D'-barracks after nightfall. The shaft has a grim reputation on account of the several skeletons unearthed during its initial excavation. Gary and Tom are about to learn the terrible secret .... Alan W. Lear - Dead Letter: "He's got himself barred from the Goose And Feathers now. He picked a fight with young Charlie Perkins - said he kept staring at him. The saloon bar was half wrecked." Seems to me there ain't enough postmen in horror fiction, so well done the late Mr. Lear for introducing Tom Gannock, who, until his sudden disappearance in 1950, only delivered bad news. But ever since cantankerous, alcoholic Uncle Frank came to stay, young Robin has heard the dead man's rusty bicycle squeaking along the lane in the early hours. Uncle's temper worsens on receipt of a letter in a mouldering envelope bearing a Penny Red George VI stamp ..... That's seven of nine and only one dreaded "happy" ending. Definitely up there with The Gruesome Book and Tales Of Terror For Tiny Tots as cornerstones of the Vault terrify the small library.
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Post by dem on Mar 24, 2014 20:42:18 GMT
Brian Mooney - Joplins: Mr. Burton, moves from London to the countryside to enjoy his retirement in peace. All is well until he decides to go blackberry picking on Joplin Hill. Mr. Hewitt, kindly neighbour, advises against it: the hill has a bad reputation on account of an infamous murder. Burton marvels at such superstitious twaddle and tramps on regardless, though, much to his chagrin, his lazy dog, Rupert, does a runner. Arriving at the brambles, Burton realises too late that those juicy, fat "blackberries" are nothing of the sort ....
Samantha Lee - The Diary: Mary, eleven, recently orphaned, moves from Hampstead to the Scottish Highlands to stay with her ancient Aunt Elspeth at Darktower, "part-house, part castle keep," for the school holidays. Mad Aunt Elspeth, it transpires, is a semi-mummified cripple with a guilty past - way back in 1905, she smothered her eleven year old sister, Fiona, to whom Mary bears an uncanny resemblance ...... Some excellent rotting corpse action in this, a stand-out of another very strong collection.
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