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Post by dem bones on Sept 30, 2021 8:06:09 GMT
L. H. Maynard [ed] - Chills (LMP, 2019) Iain Maynard David Strong - I Know You (verse) L. H. Maynard - Calling Down the Lightening M. P. N. Sims - While the Soul Cracks Quietly Ronnie Shipman - Dark Side David Strong - The Highwayman L. H. Maynard - The Disappearance of Edna Mornay Natalie Compton - Deceit and Disorder Iain Maynard - A Clicking Emma Branch - The Sound of Silence M. P. N. Sims - Quiet Sorrow Charlotte McDermott - The Red Mittens Davina Frame - My Favourites Meher Pocha - The Gap Year Alan Davie - The Heartstone Family Allison White - Spiritual Zeitgeist L. H. Maynard - Coming Home Alan Davie - The Last Book Ronnie Shipman - City at Night Stephen Duxbury - Shudder Alan Davie - Dirt Dan Norman - A View from Above Erol Hasan - Extraordinarily OrdinaryBlurb: What scares you? Is it a face at the window, looking out from an empty house? Or maybe its the creak of a floorboard in an upstairs room and a voice whispering in you ear when you're alone in the house?
Here are twenty-one stories and one poem from authors, new and well established, who know the answers.Dedication. To the memory of Hugh Lamb, Peter Haining, Richard Dalby and August DerlethL. H. Maynard - Calling Down the Lightening: Set somewhere in London's Irish pub land. Siobhan Egan, the phantom barmaid of the White Hart, plots an elaborate revenge on George Feeney, the bastard who set her sister on the path to suicide. Alan Davie - Dirt: Aida, who takes as much joy as she does pride in her work, ascends to cleaning lady Heaven. Charlotte McDermott - The Red Mittens: The nightly visits of a little ghost girl in smart brown coat and red mittens helps Mary overcome the crushing heartbreak of miscarriage. Davina Frame - My Favourite: Kate Pearson is persecuted by a bewitched laptop. The mother of two teenagers is the recipient of increasingly unwelcome gifts, seemingly inspired by random internet browsing and phone conversations. As the haunting takes an ever more sinister nature, her faceb**k account is hacked, she spends a morning unliking multiple fetish and pagan pages and unsubscribing from an occult group. None of which can prevent her horrific fate. Alan Davie - The Heartstone Family: The miserable lot of the Earl of Rolfwood, slain by the brother who'd been sleeping with his wife, Fiona, while he was in Iberia with the regiment. He is doomed to walk the forty-plus rooms of Nutwhitton Hall until somebody eventually gets around to performing an exorcism. The poor fellow has now endured over three hundred years of the most unglamorous haunting and abject boredom ... Emma Branch - The Sound of Silence: The narrator believes a mouse responsible for the constant scratching from behind the wall. Friend Ben the copper and his police spaniel investigate over tea. The removal of a board at back of a small cupboard frees a ghastly prisoner driven insane by her ordeal .... Calling Down the Lightening and My Favourites are the personal picks to date, and The Sound of Silence ends on a note of welcome nastiness. The others are .... perhaps a little underdeveloped ...
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Post by dem bones on Oct 1, 2021 7:34:50 GMT
M. P. N. Sims - While the Soul Cracks Quietly: Childless couple Mark and Hannah Manders' reward for making a success of foster parenthood is the care of a cringing, silent creature, presumed teenage girl, of no known background, found living rough. "We call her Mal after the Disney witch, Maleficent" explains the social worker. As expected, Mal proves the Manders' most trying challenge to date, though she gets on swell with the ghosts of their stillborn children.
Alan Davie - The Last Book: The tenth and final book in Ian's Bill Johnson, zombie-slayer, series takes a turn for the autobiographical.
L. H. Maynard - The Disappearance of Edna Mornay: Ninety-three year old Edna desperately attempts to attract the attention of her son and the policewoman investigating her supposed 'disappearance.' Can't they see she's sat opposite them in her chair?
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Post by Shrink Proof on Oct 1, 2021 8:43:56 GMT
This looks like something worth investigating, sadly. So many books, so little time...
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Post by dem bones on Oct 2, 2021 9:54:40 GMT
This looks like something worth investigating, sadly. So many books, so little time... Am finding it hit and miss. Other than Maynard and Sims, the authors seem to be either first timers or, at least, relative newcomers, and sometimes it shows. Ronnie Shipman - City at Night: Adam Burfield takes a late night run in the park. He is soon involved in the pursuit of someone who looks uncannily like him. Almost An Inhabitant of Carcosa for joggers with health issues. Could this be the first sport is supernatural/ haunted bench hybrid? Iain Maynard - A Clicking: Narrator uses a screwdriver and pliers to remove a beetle lodged in his nostril. Thus ends the clicking in his head, a constant companion since a one night stand at a party seventeen years ago. Trouble is, he misses his little buddy so much that within twenty-four hours he shoves it back up there. Reunited they resume their unpleasant activities of old .... Allison White - Spiritual Zeitgeist: Bethan, passed out by the river due to sheer stress and exhaustion of modern life, gets to experience Samhain as it was celebrated two thousand years ago.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 5, 2021 12:27:57 GMT
L. H. Maynard - Coming Home: Thomas Rydell, an MP whose affair with Sophie Westall, a far younger woman, has caused a scandal, refuses to go along with Central Office spin doctors and issue the standard public apology with mandatory "the wife is standing by me" photo opportunity to appease press and public. Having paid with his seat at the next election and with media vultures picking the bones from his impending acrimonious divorce, Rydell takes up his agent's offer of a few weeks break at a holiday home on the Dorset coast. Walking the cliff, he contemplates suicide, but is distracted by a woman painting the landscape (terribly). By the time a gushing Sophie finds out where he's staying and travels down to Dorchester, Rydell has taken up with this mysterious Hester Brice, who disappeared twenty years ago after the bloody murders of her husband and his mistress ....
Ronnie Shipman - Dark Side: Mark the antique dealer's latest haul includes a wad of sealed parchment, a dagger and leg scabbard of considerable vintage, and a vial of blue wax. No sooner has it come into his possession than a hirsute warrior takes to stalking him on the tube and his old flame is abducted by a duplicitous museum custodian. Sword and sorcery of a kind, with love interest Julie putting in a shift as a Xena-a-like.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 7, 2021 15:23:44 GMT
Stephen Duxbury - Shudder: A victim of too many internet conspiracy theorists, Simon is convinced that each of us is vulnerable to possession by the vagrant souls of the dear departed, little colonies of dead manipulating our every thought and deed. Psychiatrist Kyle Featherword discovers at cost of his own "sanity" that the condition is contagious.
David Strong - The Highwayman: Armitage, a trader in the finest Sheffield steel cutlery whose hobbies include rape and murder, travels to Cornwall to meet rich clients. En route he spends a night at an inn reputedly haunted by a phantom highwayman. Awakening from a nightmare, Armitage goes to the window to find a stranger gazing up at his room. Furious at being spied upon, Armitage confronts the man, only to learn that this night they are to share a lengthy coach-ride to the final destination as damned guests of the "highwayman." Meher Pocha - The Gap Year: A widowed father and his two daughters die in a collision with a tearaway driver, also killed. Meanwhile a mystery girl named Stella finds work as a waitress in a North Wales tea shop, where she befriends a mother pining a runaway daughter.
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