Author: Alyson Faye

I first came across Catherine McCarthy’s fiction last year when we shared the Table of Contents on the NHS fund-raising anthology, Diabolica Britannica. She is one of many burgeoning female indie horror writers thrusting ever upwards, whose work I rate, admire, and enjoy. If you like quiet horror, sometimes Gothic, dashes of suspense, the supernatural with hauntings-a -plenty, but no gore or splatterpunk, then like me, you will love her fiction.

Catherine’s second collection of ten tales (a percentage of which are reprints or extended versions, but many are originals) are set in the land she loves, Wales. Some of her stories reshape Welsh myths (who do the Coblynau knock for?) and legends, while other tales create new monsters and weave suspenseful yarns set in locations as varied as abandoned railway stations (‘Jagged Edges’- where dutiful Harold Hodges still turns up to work, but why?); down coal mines (’Retribution’); and in a newly-built Victorian icehouse. In the wittiest, most darkly comic tale of the collection, an overfilled cemetery, ‘Two’s Company, Three’s a Shroud’, is one of my faves. 

The author prefaces each story with informative paragraphs on the history of the tale, its significance, and/or source. I liked these prefaces and found them engaging and useful. However, I also think her stories are more than strong enough to stand alone.

Catherine McCarthy’s writing style verges on the poetic at times, though she is equally at home with dialogue as well as narrative. Her stories are strong on sensory effects, the smell and sound of the sea, and the taste and feel of the landscape. Indeed, one of her most unusual and compelling stories, ‘Carreg Samson’ is told in the voice of the Neolithic burial chamber- yes the stones speak and their language is lyrical.

The opening story, ‘Cragen’ (Welsh for Shell) has, as its protagonist, a beloved only daughter, Lily, (same for me while growing up) and her invisible friend, whom the parents indulge, yet do not for one moment believe is real. Until a series of freakish incidents mount and Lilly’s answer is ‘Cragen did it.’

McCarthy delicately charts Lily’s blighted childhood and the ways in which Cragen’s non-presence tears her and the family apart, until the final brutal and sad finale in the ocean—Cragen’s real home. I had tears in my eyes.

A personal favourite of mine is one I first read last year – ‘Ysbrid Y Mor’ (Spirit of the Sea), in the online version of ‘Life and Style’ a Welsh magazine. It is a beautifully told supernatural tale (PG 12- it had to be so, for family consumption) about a village by the sea. Whilst totally isolating itself from the plague ravaging the land, it is fearful of the visiting stranger who arrives from the sea on Christmas Eve, carrying a strange sack which rattles. The villagers call him ‘a ghost from the sea’ – and perhaps he is just that? For he has no name and is ancient. But he could be something more, for he has a message worth listening to. Self-imposed isolation has made the villagers sad, bitter and fearful. Is it worth the risk to reach out? Or not? We need to ask these questions. Reading this story in lock down UK during COVID days, well, the resonance struck me hard and provided another layer to the tale. 

Every reader will have their favourites in this collection. Its strengths along with the cohesiveness of the Welsh backdrop, the myths, the humanity and pathos of its characters, and its poetic language, all combine to make this collection an outstandingly good read.

Highly recommended.

5/5 stars

Available from  Amazon.

Lisa Heathfield is a new author to me and I picked up this ARC, via NetGalley, (happily) based very much on the blurb:-  set in 1950’s England, Clara (just turned fourteen) and her much younger brother, Stevie, (about seven, I would guess) are deposited by their father, at their aunt’s rambling old country house to stay, after their mother’s horrific accident, which has left her in hospital.

Auntie has no children of her own (but, see the wonderful cover above, she does have dolls! And I do love dolls in fiction and what they represent). At first Auntie welcomes the children, playing surrogate mum to them, cooking meals and washing for them. Stevie, in particular, has a huge need for a mother. He also wants to play with the train set in the basement and all the other toys. 

Auntie has very strict rules and a husband, Uncle Warren, who is away working, but when home the children hear him shouting and realise he doesn’t want them in his house. But why not? Auntie’s rules become harder for the children to follow, Auntie becomes more unstable or does she? Or is it the children’s behaviour provoking her into becoming more controlling? Both Clara and Stevie are changing in this new environment and the garden yields some disturbing surprises.

I adore Gothic-style novels, with small casts, claustrophobic settings, internal/external ghosts, the possibility of lurking insanity, escalating emotions and a unexcavated darkness at the heart.

Consequently, I found myself gripped and swept along and soon buried nose-deep in ‘Such Pretty Things’. I instantly bonded with Clara, with whom I came to identify and empathise. Perhaps she’s my dream older sister?

She’s brave, loyal, feisty, strong, missing her mum, yet still trying to ‘mother’ her little brother, in this new family set-up which is all the children have left. But there can only be one ‘mother’ in the house it becomes clear as the weeks drag by.

The narrative flips throughout the novel over into revealing Auntie’s internal thoughts, which are fascinating and increasingly disturbing. 

The house and the dolls become extras in the unrolling drama, and loom large over it. The garden and marshy land beyond (the backdrop for a riveting episode which places the children in grave physical danger), the characters’ subtle interplay, their daily life and Auntie’s inner life, are beautifully written, with lush, vivid language.

This is a world with no internet, no TV, no smart phones, rather one where children play with toys, make up games and entertain themselves, where meals are eaten at the table in freshly-changed clothes (hand-sewn by Auntie – a flag? Or just a lovely gift?), where domestic rituals dominate, and where visitors from outside do not intrude. If they ever do – well, read and find out. It is therefore a very isolated world, cut off and hermetic. Setting it in the 1950’s was a good move.

Gradually we discover more of Auntie’s history, her life and her mindset. She has always wanted a family of her own, but they must play by her rules, and when they don’t – Clara goes into battle both to save herself and her brother, but can you ever escape the ties of family? Both living and dead?

This is not a straightforward ghost/supernatural/haunted house novel, but more a tale of grief, loss, sadness, instability, loss of control and a fight to survive, but there are horror aspects interwoven in the narrative – so a hybrid, I’d say a ‘lit-fic-horror-novel’.

The ending is very powerful, and won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I found it wonderfully written and very touching. I nearly cried anyway.

There are quite a few reveals in the last section of the book, maybe too many too close together? There’s a lot here to process and the reader will have to re-jig their understanding of what’s been happening, as like Clara, we’ve been kept in the dark. This reader had her suspicions but I didn’t work it all out. There was one shocking reveal near the end which stopped me in my tracks.

Author Lisa Heathfield kindly provided this quote concerning the inspiration behind her début adult novel:-

“The house, with Auntie and the children arrived in my mind fully-formed one day. I let it stay there for a few months as I finished another book and then I began to write. I never plot, so I never know which way the book will go. I write long-hand and was genuinely surprised by what was coming out of my ink pen, especially Auntie’s voice, which was so strong. I knew almost immediately that it wasn’t a young adult book. In fact, after I’d finished the first draft, I tried to rewrite it as a Y.A., but it was stubborn and wouldn’t yield. I’m not sure I have a favourite character. I know that Auntie is unstable, but I have huge sympathy for her. And I’m quite fascinated by Stephen, by his need for a mother, by the internal working of his mind.”

5/5 stars

Available from Bookshop and Amazon.

I have read Ramsey Campbell over the years, along with other authors published by indie horror press Flame Tree (launched in 2018). I’ve enjoyed them.

So, when the opportunity came to review Campbell’s latest—I leapt at it, albeit with mental reservation; I am not a trilogy reader. The subtitle The Three Births of Daoloth did recall to mind a Tom Baker ‘Dr Who’ 1970’s episode (nothing wrong with that either—I loved Baker as the time travelling Dr).

When I reached the end of The Searching Dead, it’s fair to say I still wasn’t certain who or what Daoloth was, which felt like a bit of a let-down and a swizzle.

For me, this was a book of two halves. I enjoyed, very much, the set up and back drop of 1950’s Liverpool (where my parents lived and grew up) but the second half, which I kept hoping would deliver more horror or a bit more supernatural oomph at least, for me it didn’t. And by the last few chapters I’d given up hope and therefore lost interest. It’s fairly clear Campbell’s novel is Book 1; everything is being set up. But nothing is being explained or resolved, merely hinted. There’s only so much hinting you can do over 240-odd pages without losing this reader’s interest.

So, the pluses: Liverpool, grey, and dreary in 1952, still in the grip of rationing. It is meticulously realised and clearly vivid in Mr Campbell’s personal memory. The city stands out as another character in its own right, including the cinemas the teenage protagonists (the self-titled Tremendous Three) patronise and the roads and parks they explore. 

Being a keen film buff, I did spot the odd implied inaccuracy – e.g. the 1953 film, From Here to Eternity won Best Supporting Actor/Actress Oscars not the two top Best Actor/Actress awards, much to Hollywood star Burt Lancaster’s chagrin. 

The engaging main protagonist, the teenage Dominic Sheldrake—who narrates the story—is a likeable, observant, thoughtful lad whose anxieties and obsessions leap off the page. Dominic attends a Catholic upper school run by strict monks; he gives a fair amount of discussion regarding religion—how it should be taught, how it’s perceived, but is actually lived and practiced by the adults. Dominic also worries a lot about telling lies and defining the shades of truth.

One teacher in particular bothers young Sheldrake more and more—Christian Noble. Noble organises a history trip to the WW1 battlefields of France after his aged father tells creepy stories at a school assembly about a field in France which seems to have an evil energy of its own. Noble has his own agenda—the scenes where he pushes his toddler daughter, Tina, around the graveyard/park in her pushchair whilst having strangely adult conversations with her—those scenes fairly hum off the page with spookiness. The school trip to France is another highlight with Dominic and friends stalking their teacher on his weird night-time activities.

Noble preaches at a local church and has enticed Dominic’s near neighbour, Mrs Norris, a lonely widow, to join the congregation. It is Mrs Norris whose character eludes, opaquely hints—but never directly—about how she is now ‘enjoying’ the company of the late Mr Norris, whom Mr Noble has brought back in some way. The scenes in the Norris’ tiny terrace are very effective, claustrophobic, and unnerving.

Dominic’s staunchly religious parents are horrified but cannot deny the terrible disintegration which befalls Mrs Norris. They believe it’s merely spiritualism, but Dominic comes to suspect a much darker truth about Mr Noble’s church.

At times, when the teens are in full Famous Five P.I. mode, the story reads more like an Enid Blyton adventure than a horror novel. After a while it does get a bit boring: all the teen chats, the night stalking, the eavesdropping… and nothing much happening. Even if the dead are back, we never see them or get much idea of them doing anything—well, as yet. Obviously there two more books to come. I won’t be returning for Books 2 and 3.

However, as always, Mr Campbell’s stylish writing and clever and elliptical use of language is a master class in itself.

Another issue for me was the patchy editing/proofreading. There were typos and frequent incorrect punctuation, especially with the layout of speech.

So, four stars for the writing, half a star taken off for the errors and slapdash proofing. Sorry, but it does matter to this reader.

Many thanks to Flame Tree Press for supplying a hard back copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Available from Bookshop and Amazon.

“Ghostly bourbon fumes swim in streetlamp vertigo.” (From Road Shadow, a drabble)

I came across American horror writer Kevin Folliard on the virtual pages of The Horror Tree site where his short fiction has appeared in the Trembling with Fear weekly fiction section. I also read his Short Sharp Shock! Book 25- Candy Corn last year which is excellent, and very scary, so I thought, yes—I’m up for reading this latest collection!

I read a lot of horror these days, both short stories and novels, and it takes a quite a lot to make an impression on my horror-saturated soul. So, first off, I have to say, Kevin Folliard can WRITE! And then some. He really grips an audience by the neck. Some of his prose reads like poetry (see the quote above which leapt off the page).

Folliard is adept at writing dialogue and spinning the story along using lengthy chains of colloquial chat which pack in an impressive amount of back story (and gives us, the readers, insight about the characters and their histories). Impressively executed.

Great title too – very original. Inside this closet are worlds within worlds of dark places, occupied by dark-stained souls.

Now it’s shout-out time! (i.e. kudos to the stories which really clicked with me, though there are no weak pieces in this collection.)

“Mirror Mirror”—a new story for the collection. Something evil lurks in the ‘antique dresser mirror’ and Uncle Brian has to fight to protect his niece, Kayleigh, from its clutches. Atmospheric and chilling and taps into kiddies’ nightmares.

“Deep and Dark”—a story originally published in Triangle Magazine– wow -this one really hit me in the gut. Possibly because some of the action is set in a swimming pool and the two teen protagonists are both swimmers (as am I), and a pool is a place where you are both exposed and yet, supposedly, safe. I could smell the chlorine.

Lee and Sam have an intense, dedicated friendship until Sam drowns in the ‘baby blue bottom’ of the pool (brilliant phrase). Flashbacks portray the genesis of their relationship and how Lee begins to understand and glimpse something evil and demonic living inside his friend, an outwardly all-American blonde-haired sports boy. (Metaphors here?) In the deserted, drained-out pool Lee has a terrifying encounter with the entity, which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Ink”—a tale originally published in Bumps in the Road- A Horror Anthology—is another one that creeped me out. It’s a deceptively simple set-up; a lone male driver at night parks to rest in an isolated ‘rest spot’. So far so normal. Then two teens turn up asking for a lift. Does he let them in? And why wouldn’t he? Folliard ramps up the tension. Even the words ‘Take us home,’ carry menace. Brilliantly done.

“Rocking Horse”—a drabble published in Trembling with Fear—demonstrates what he can do with only one hundred words. It also shows how family history and webs of evil can be revealed through a child’s rocking horse and a few lines of dialogue. Clever and shiver-inducing.

The collection ends with a début novella, The Bagman Cometh. The titular bagman is a creature concocted from nightmares, preceded by ‘the horrible-fishy stench’ with a ‘serrated smile’ and a tongue like an eel and a coat like ‘an ocean of shadows’. Get the picture? Not someone you’d want to cosy up with. The ending one-ups the terror of what has gone before, so wait for the last few lines before you draw breath.

Folliard’s writing is impressively solid and professional through to its DNA. Definitely worth buying and reading. This is Folliard at the top of his writing game!

5/5 stars

Available from Amazon and Bookshop.

The discovery of an old scrapbook in a Warsaw library leads researcher Phineas Fox to uncover evidence of a devastating wartime atrocity.

“We had no choice. But it was a bad way for them to die.”

I have been reading Rayne’s novels for years now- she is one of my all-time fave authors – so I seek out her annual new books like I seek out chocolate—with determination and happy anticipation.

I received this e-arc direct from my man at Severn House Publishers (Carl) and read it in 2-3 sittings in large happy gulps. Mind you that’s the best way to read Rayne, for her plots are twisty, layered, historical, and can be a bit complicated – I daren’t take my eye off the ball. I’ve even considered a spider diagram to help keep the links fresh in my head.

The Devil’s Harmony is the latest in the Phineas Fox series (with assistance from his girlfriend/fiancée Arabella Tallis). Phineas Fox is a music researcher/historian and author and is, I suspect from reading interviews about the author’s interests, Sarah Rayne’s fictional alter ego. You don’t have to read the Fox novels in order, though there are occasional references to past plots and conspiracies.

As is usual with Rayne’s history/mysteries, she spins her dark web across several different time-lines, countries and characters – though they often are shown to be linked in ways which become clear as you read.

The narrative kicks off in Tsarist Russia, in the crucial year of 1918 when an anonymous child (later the identity is revealed) witnesses more than s/he should of a piece of lethal history. Rayne is adept at expressing characters’ different points of view and handling the limited understanding but quicksilver intelligence of children.

The story moves to wartime, Nazi-occupied Warsaw, and specifically focusses on the Polish musicians working at the Chopin Library (now lost to history due to a mysterious all-consuming blaze). Then we move into present day as the ongoing research of Fox and Arabella heats up. This takes them to an obscure English village and a life and death meeting with a spinster, Thaisa, who guards deadly secrets.

Running through all of these different times/locations is the tuneful thread of an infamous piece of music known as the “Dark Cadence”, only ever played at a traitor’s execution and now lost to history – or is it?

Rayne brings wartime Warsaw alive, and I can almost see and smell the food at Anatol’s Polish café in The Street of Music, where the main characters hang out, and feel the heat of the flames as the Chopin Library burns. 

Rayne leads the reader into the heart of evil and shows how the chainlinks which tie and corrupt ordinary people are made stronger by circumstances, war, and their own actions. One man’s traitor is another man’s hero. No one is without guilt. And the sins of the past always cast long shadows in her novels.

Some of the narrative is told through excerpts from diaries, emails, lost documents, and letters, which is another Rayne motif. If you enjoy multiple time-lines, points of views, stories partly told through historical documents and walks through history, then obviously this is the book for you. I happen to adore this sort of mystery. 

This story doesn’t have Rayne’s trademark supernatural layering to it, which her earlier ones do. (The Michael Flint/Nell West novels). In The Devil’s Harmony the characters are haunted by their acts and their pasts. Some are never free of them. And of course there are deaths and murders, often terrible hideous ways of dying. If you have a fear of confined spaces, read this with care.

The ending is very touching and ties up the threads well, giving this reader great satisfaction.

5/5 stars

Available from amazon.