Author: Alyson Faye

Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Bottled

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Title: Bottled
Author: Stephanie Ellis
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Silver Shamrock Publishing
Release Date: 21st January, 2020

Synopsis: The house was his, an unwanted and unwelcome inheritance. As a child, Tyler Vitrum spent many miserable hours beneath its roof, hating his grandfather and the man’s housekeeper, Mrs. Waites. His only escape during those visits had been via the impossible bottles created by his granddad; bottles holding miniature worlds in which he could lose himself for hours. Sometimes however, he sensed something else living in the house and in the bottles and when he returned home, he took the nightmares with him.Now an adult, Tyler decides one last visit can do no harm, allow him to finally shake off his nightmares. The bottles however, are waiting—and so is Mrs. Waites. As both house and bottles gradually yield up their secrets, it is made clear to Tyler what is expected of him and what will happen should he fail.Is Tyler master or servant of the house?

​

In the foreword, Australian horror writer Deborah Sheldon says this novella is ‘a grisly, surreal examination of free will and the curse of hereditary’. Bestselling author of ‘Vox’, Christina Dalcher says it’s ‘deliciously creepy…’.  I’d agree with both those Ladies of Horror, for there are many layers to this atmospheric novella. 

At its dark heart lies an original idea, one which I’ve not come across before, of the ‘impossible bottles’ like the ones we stared at as kids in antique shops, with tiny ships trapped inside. However, these bottles – an army of them lying around Tyler’s granddad’s creepy old house – contain a myriad of miniature scenes, even entire worlds and stick figures. Uncork one at your peril. They should come with a label – Toxic Contents. Already we can tell these bottles are not merely pretty and decorative but rather more sinister.

The aforementioned Tyler is through whom we watch the tale unfold. He inherits the house which he visited as a child, where his granddad and the hideous housekeeper, Mrs Waites, (she makes Mrs Danvers look warm and cuddly) tortured and beat him. Contradictorily, they also tried to teach him a unique skill—the family’s trade.

Tyler has terrible memories of the house, but if he wants his inheritance money fast, then he has to spend the night or else wait a year to collect. 

His ex-wife has her own agenda.

Tyler has one son, Paul. Tyler feels huge guilt as he’s been an absentee and alcoholic father. Though we the reader are screaming, ‘No! Don’t spend the night in the weird sinister house!’ off Tyler goes and does just that. 

There are other themes enriching the supernatural skin of this novella – an exploration of how alcohol has destroyed Tyler, how broken fatherless families can be, and how subsequent guilt leads to lifelong problems which bleed through generations. This makes Tyler a more rounded and interesting figure. He is a man trapped; born into the wrong family and unable to break free.

The house is another leading character in the narrative, not behaving internally or externally as houses should. This home throws up roomfuls of secrets and nasty tests. The house has its own virulent energy and it very much leaps off the page.

Then there are the mysterious bottles, which are everywhere. What are they? Who makes them? What do they contain? I won’t give anything away here to spoil your discovery. But they certainly don’t just contain the whiskey Tyler drinks to blot out his past, his present and his future.

The final denouement I found to be quite horrific and very well envisaged. The final scenes are powerful and disturbing. Probably not too much of a spoiler to say there are no happy endings here. Other memorable scenes? Those set in the garden of the house where Tyler learns another piece of the puzzle, and where I almost felt sorry for the horrible housekeeper. And an early scene in the cellar – which is one room we know he should never venture into, where my entomophobia went through the roof.

This is an entertaining, atmospheric, slow build haunted house story (with a twist) with echoes of those glorious 1980’s pulp paperbacks. However, it contains scenes of heart stopping dread and terror that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. It is also one man’s personal journey into his family’s blighted history, and a coming to terms with his demons.

Can I also give a shout out to the gorgeous cover by artist Kealen Patrick Burke which perfectly captures the arc of the story? I want the poster up on my wall.

5/5 stars

‘Bottled’ is available on Amazon!

Articles / Interviews

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Horror Tree Presents … An Interview with Alison Littlewood

Interview questions for Alison Littlewood put by Alyson Faye

I recently met up with Alison Littlewood at the UK Ghost Story Festival at the Derby Quad, where she was on the panels and talking about her latest novel, the seasonal chiller, Mistletoe. I’ve been reading Alison’s fiction for over 8-9 years now, and remember her début thriller, A Cold Season, coming out in 2012 and being prominently displayed in all the W. H. Smiths, as a Richard and Judy Book Club recommendation. I’d been following Alison’s short stories in magazines like Black Static as well and downloading them onto my Kindle, like Fogbound From 5 (published 2011). So, I was delighted when she agreed to be interviewed. 

         

Q:- Hello Alison. Could we start off by you telling us something about yourself, please?

Hello! I’m a writer of fiction, of the dark and often a little weird variety. I live in Yorkshire with my partner and two dogs in an old and wonky house, am slightly obsessed with fountain pens and other assorted stationery, have a growing collection of books on weird history and folklore, and am alarmingly attached to semicolons.  

Q:- What were your favourite books/authors growing up? And how important was visiting the local library to you?

I read anything and everything growing up! I started off with a huge love of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. I cried buckets over The Little Mermaid, but loved it even more because it could make me cry. Then came years of Enid Blyton and Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Later I read really widely, though I used to borrow all my brother’s Stephen King books and discovered James Herbert too. 

The local library was really important to me. I still remember weekly trips with my mother. There was a huge old world map printed on the wall in the children’s section, and it felt like that – being let loose into a whole world of stories. 

Q:- Did you always want to be a writer? Or did there come a turning point when you knew, ‘Yes, this is the time?’

I think that quietly, I always had a secret dream of a book with my name on the cover. But for a long time I thought of writing as something other people did. Stephen King’s book, On Writing, was a big inspiration to at least give it a go, so I joined a local creative writing class to force myself into it. I went on from there, and just kept writing and learning all I could, mainly because I loved it, but then I started to have short stories published and eventually decided it was time to try writing a novel. 

Q:- Have you always written dark/supernatural horror fiction?

Pretty much from the beginning, yes. I tried different things at first, but quickly discovered that it was the darker ideas that got my fingers tingling to get to the keyboard. It was odd really because I still read really widely at that point, but I got drawn more and more into the genre as a reader too because of the direction my writing took. 

Q:- Do you read in that genre too? Which authors and books stand out for you? Or have influenced you?

I increasingly immersed myself in the genre as I went along. Partly that was inspired by other genre people – I can still remember being at an event and folk having a really in-depth conversation about Cthulhu, and I’m like, ‘What?’ So I wanted to plug the gaps in my knowledge, but also I fell in love with the genre more and more, so naturally turned to it in my reading. I love John Ajvide Lindqvist, Joe Hill, Michele Paver, Graham Joyce and many, many others. Priya Sharma, Nathan Ballingrud, Angela Slatter and Paul Tremblay are writing stunning short fiction. Some of the books I’ve enjoyed recently are Tim Lebbon’s Eden, The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher and Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley. 

Q:- How do you structure your writing day?

Mainly I make sure my two Dalmatian dogs are happy, then I begin! I take them for a good walk, which wakes me up and gets them to sleep, so I can have some peace to sit down in the study. I get any bits and bobs done before lunch, then a big block of work in the afternoon. Or plenty of banging my head against the wall, depending on how it’s going. 

Q:- Is it pen/paper or PC? Coffee or tea? Music on or off? Study or shed where you write?

Pen and paper for notes – preferably fountain pens, which are just luscious – but a laptop for drafting. Perhaps oddly, I often use a Kindle for editing too, at least once I’m onto the later stages. The reading part of the process feels more natural that way, then I can use my short notes as a guide to make the actual changes on the computer. It saves printing out reams of paper too. 

I work in my study, which I love. I decorated it and built the desk and sit there surrounded by bookish things. As for the rest, I’m a tea and quiet kind of person.  

Q:- You’ve written an impressive number of novels and short stories. Do you have a preference for the short or longer form? Are you more comfortable with one or the other? Do you plan for both, i.e. are you a planner or a pantser? 

I’d have to come down on the side of the longer form, though it’s tricky because short stories are just so much fun. You can try different things – various settings and voices – in a short space of time, and even if it doesn’t work, there’s not too much lost. Novels are a deeper, more intense experience, and sometimes horribly frustrating to work through, but the pay-off is a greater sense of satisfaction at the end of it. 

Q:- My personal favourite of your novels is the Victorian Gothic The Crow Garden (pub. Oct 2017). Do you have a favourite amongst your novels/short stories? And if so, why?

I loved writing both my Victorian Gothic tales, so that’s kind of you to say! My favourite is probably the earlier one, The Hidden People, just because it uses some of the dark fairy changeling lore that I adore. Plus, I was part way through writing that book when I realised that the situation in the little village of Halfoak was going to be more complex and wide-ranging than I had thought. It surprised me, and I love it when that happens. A similar thing happened with my latest, Mistletoe, where one of the characters very much took the reins towards the end. 

 

 

Q:- Mistletoe, published in October by Jo Fletcher Books, is your latest novel. Landscape plays a significant part in your novels, as it does in this one. I was struck by the snowy isolation of Maitland Farm. Is it based on a particular area or farm you know? Or even your own home, which you describe on your blog as ‘a house of creaking doors and crooked walls’?

My own house is, worryingly, more like the one in The Unquiet House, apart from the actual ghosts anyway! I do tend to set my books in Yorkshire because that’s where I live and I’m familiar with it and its folk and the way people talk and so on. Maitland Farm is an amalgam of various old farmhouses I’ve been inside or just seen dotted around the more dank corners of the countryside. I did have a photo of one old farmhouse in front of me while I wrote, which I lifted from a website of houses for sale in Yorkshire. It was just my image of Maitland Farm. Weirdly, I can’t find it now, though I do wonder what the people who bought it might have thought of it all.

Q:- Mistletoe travels back in time to the Victorian era and you also weave in folkloric traditions to do with mistletoe (which I didn’t know and found interesting). Again, did you do research for this?

Yes, I did plenty of research, both into the folklore I used and the history of the Christmas season, which is also threaded through the novel. I do feel that if I’m going to use folklore or history in a story, I have to use it faithfully, even though I’m writing fiction. In the case of Mistletoe some of the tales behind the plant came from different regions, but I found ways of working that into the text and having some kind of logic behind its being there. Simply inventing that aspect of the content would have felt all wrong to me. 

Q:- How long did it take you to write the book?

I actually wrote the novel pretty quickly and handed it in during 2018, doing much of the spadework in the early part of the year when the spirit of Christmas wasn’t too distant a memory and we had plenty of snow flurries to help with the description. It was just too late to get the novel out that year, though, so it was scheduled for October 2019, which gave plenty of time for further editing. As a result, I’m beginning to formulate a theory that editing takes every bit as long as you allow for it!

Q:- Did you have any input into the cover design – which to me, seemed to make the mistletoe appear both organic and carnivorous? Certainly not the cosy image we usually have relating to kisses under the mistletoe.

I did put some ideas forward, but the credit for that really has to go to the brilliant team at Jo Fletcher Books! They made it look deliciously striking and moody, and I love the palette of colours they used.

  Q:- You write about horror and scary things – so, what scares you?

Lots of things. People tend to assume that horror writers are like the monster in the closet, when we’re really the child cowering under the duvet. Mainly, I guess, the big questions of death and loss. A lot of the time, though, horror writing is really about love, because it’s when you love something that you fear losing it the most. I do think that writing about such things helps you work through what you feel about them and how you’d face them, so it offers catharsis too, for both reader and writer.

Q:- What films have you enjoyed watching lately? And music? Do you prefer gigs or theatre or films?

I enjoy the odd gig or trip to the theatre, though I prefer films. The Silence, the movie made of Tim Lebbon’s novel, was awesome. (available to watch on Netflix).

I recently saw Brightburn, which was brilliant – high-concept and yet character-driven at the same time. My favourite film is Pan’s Labyrinth. I love the choice it offers the viewer at the end – it pretty much makes you decide if you believe in magic. It’s just beautiful. Tale of Tales is amazing too, it’s just visually stunning and yet grotesque. I’d love to visit some of the places it was filmed; they deliberately chose locations that don’t look quite real. I’m rambling now, aren’t I. Sorry! 

Q:- What are you currently working on? (As much information as you can give.)

I’m currently editing a novel length version of my novella, Cottingley. As its name suggests, The Cottingley Cuckoo revolves around the incident of the Cottingley fairies, which were famously supposed to have been caught on camera near Bradford by two young girls. Events escalated after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was taken in. It’s a fascinating incident, though of course the image of the fairies presented didn’t match up to the rather darker tales of the little folk I’ve read so much about. So my story involves fairies that are rather less sweet and gauzy and any encounters with them have rather darker consequences. 

Q:- What publications do you have coming out next? Your work often appears in horror or dark fiction anthologies. I noticed on Amazon that you have a story appearing in Cursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales due out in March 2020 alongside Neil Gaiman and the wonderful Angela Slatter, whose work I love. Can you tell us something about that project, please?

Sure! I was lucky enough to be invited to submit, and the theme was a cracker – new fairy stories involving a curse. I’d been reading Magical Folk, a book about fairy legends from around the UK, and one set on the Shetlands really caught hold of my imagination, so I wound my story about that. The editors, Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, fortunately liked it. I’m in great company and the cover looks gorgeous, so I’m very much looking forward to seeing the finished book. 

It’s a nice time for upcoming anthologies, actually – I’m also looking forward to Stephen Jones’ Mammoth Book of Folk Horror and Shadows and Tall Trees Volume 8 by Michael Kelly, (due out on 3 March, 2020) plus a couple of other lovely projects I’m not sure if I’m allowed to talk about yet.  

Q:- I am a huge fan of zombie movies and shows, from del Toro’s fab TV series, The Strain, to World War Z, the British, 28 Days, to B movies like Rezort Z and the old Val Lewton’s B I walked with a Zombie. If it’s got zombies in it – I’m there. 

In 2015 you wrote Zombie Apocalypse! Acapulcalypse Now, set in Stephen Jones’ ZA universe. Was this a natural sideways move for you into another type of horror? Something you’d always wanted to have a go at? Do you enjoy zombie films?

It wasn’t a natural step as such – Steve simply asked me if I’d like to write a novel set in the ZA world he’d created, and I thought it would be a massive dose of fun! I’d already written a short piece for one of the ZA mosaic novels, so it was a progression from that. I’d also set plenty of short stories overseas, in places I’d visited, so this was a great opportunity to do that with a novel. It’s about zombies invading a Mexican hotel, with plenty of mayhem but also hopefully some touching human stories, along with a good dose of Mayan lore. There are a few japes in it too, and some tips of the hat to various disaster or adventure movies for the sharp-eyed to spot. It turned out to be just as I’d expected – huge fun, and Steve was great to work with.  

As for zombie films – I watch ’em, though I’m not an aficionado! I rather like the ones with a bit of comedy running through them – my approach to zombies seems naturally a bit tongue-in-cheek. So Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead would be more my thing. 

Thank you Alison.

Thank you Alyson! ☺

http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk/

Twitter :- Ali_L

Amazon author’s page:- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alison-Littlewood/e/B005VO5DJI

Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Third Corona Book of Horror Stories

Disclosure:

Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: The Third Corona Book of Horror Stories
Author: Various, ed. Lewis Williams
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Corona Books UK
Release Date: 1st October, 2019

Synopsis: In response to our worldwide call, we received a total of 824 horror short story submissions for this book – adding up to a staggering total of over three million words. But we read them all, selecting only the best of the best stories to include in this book. That is why when we say this book is something special, we mean it and that when we say it contains the best in new horror short stories, that is no hyperbole. We love horror, and the stories included in this book prove that it’s a genre where great imagination and great writing are more than possible. From the opening story ‘Suds and Monsters’, which might put you off washing dishes for good, to the closing story ‘Scythe’, which brings the proceedings to a short sharp close, each contribution will bring new horrors to unsettle you. We can guarantee you will find brilliant new horror writing here, but what you won’t find is a collection full of those who have star names (yet). We’re proud to include here both a story from at least one author who has sold books in the millions and a story from at least one author whose work has never been published before. We’ve simply included the very, very best of the stories, without fear or favour, to bring you the very best modern horror anthology possible.

Corona Publishing is in their own words, a ‘UK-based independent publishers of the brilliant, innovative and quirky.’

I attended the UK Ghost Story Festival in Derby and met the two people behind Corona—Lewis Williams and Sue Eaton.  We sat for an interview which has appeared on the Horror Tree site https://horrortree.com/guest-post-uk-ghost-story-festival/.

Since I’d already been aware of Corona Books, I made a mental note to read their latest anthology collection, The Third Corona Book of Horror Stories (224 pages).

Corona received an overwhelming number of submissions—824—for this anthology. One submission was from me; my story received an ‘honourable mention’.

19 dark tales have been gathered from both sides of the Atlantic. Experienced writers and at least one début author are included in this collection. So, there is a mix of US and Brit-style dialogue and slang.

A variety of horrors await the reader. The anthology is well edited and put together; I was impressed by the quality.

The opening story ‘Suds and Monsters’ by Christopher Stanley proved to be a strong start. You’ll never view doing the washing the same way again! Horrific. 

Tricia Lowther’s, ‘The Haunting of April’, also grabbed my attention. 

‘Heights’, apart from being well written with a climbing scale of spooky haunting, stars a dog. And I am rather fond of dogs. 

Jo Gilmour’s, ‘Angel’, is visceral. It tugs at your guts and heart right from the ominous opening line, ‘Daddy always wanted a boy.’ Which set my alarm bells ringing. 

A shout out to Jess Doyle’s, ‘Luna Too’, for originality and a twist I didn’t see coming. 

Probably my favourite story is, ‘Lily’s Kids’, by Florence Ann Marlowe. Marlowe’s tale leapt off the page and remained in my memory afterwards. Set in a small American town in the Depression era, and told mainly from a teenage boy’s point of view (Jimmy). It describes his and his younger sister’s fatal meeting with three children who are ‘raggedy scarecrows’—the titular Lily’s Kids. Marlowe builds the tension and allows readers to work out what’s going on by dropping hints, and yet holding back till the final skin-crawling reveal. Marlowe is a writer from whom I would like more stories to read.

There are no weak links in this anthology. All the stories pull their weight. Yes, there are stories I didn’t enjoy as much, but that I believe that goes to a reader’s personal taste. I did feel like a couple narratives finished a little early for me, and I would have liked more details from others.

Don’t miss out on the series of useful and interesting author biographies at the rear.

Overall a strong, entertaining anthology.

4/5 stars

Available on Amazon.

Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Mistletoe

Disclosure:

Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: Mistletoe
Author: Alison Littlewood
Genre: Supernatural mystery
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Release Date: 10th October, 2019

Synopsis: Leah thought Maitland Farm could give her a new life – but now old ghosts are dragging her into the past.

Following the tragic deaths of her husband and son, Leah is looking for a new life. Determined to bury her grief in hard work and desperate to escape Christmas and the reminders of what she has lost, she rushes through the purchase of a run-down Yorkshire farmhouse, arriving just as the snow shrouds her new home.

It might look like the loveliest Christmas card, but it’s soon clear it’s not just the house that needs renovation: the land is in bad heart, too. As Leah sets to work, she begins to see visions of the farm’s former occupants – and of the dark secrets that lie at the heart of Maitland Farm.

If Leah is to have a future, she must find a way to lay both her own past and theirs to rest – but the visions are becoming disturbingly real . . .

​A new Alison Littlewood novel is always an anticipated reading event. I’ve read her fiction for years, tracking her short stories through various magazines like Black Static and other anthologies, onwards to her 2011 novel début, A Cold Season, which became a Richard and Judy Book Club Recommendation. My personal favourite of hers is the Victorian Gothic  mystery thriller, The Crow Garden, 2017.

I attended the UK Ghost Story Festival at the Derby Quad in November 2019, where Alison Littlewood spoke. I treated myself to a hardback copy of her latest novel, Mistletoe, and set off with it clutched in my hot little hand to ask Alison to sign it. 

From the gorgeous cover of mistletoe on the branch, to the setting on a snowbound farm in Yorkshire (the county where I currently live), Christmas proves itself the right time of year to read this book. This is a wintry themed novel, filled with chilling emotions (to start with anyway). 

I dove into the icy, chilly mystery enveloping the protagonist, Leah Hamilton, a young widow who tragically lost her son and husband. Leah wants to escape the Christmas hassle and build a new life for herself. She hastily purchases and renovates the run down Maitland Farm, where her family has historic ties. Her only human contacts are the neighbours at the next farm; a brother, his sister and her child. They provide the touchstone of reality and company which Leah yearns for, yet fears.

The author is skilled at developing atmosphere: aloneness, claustrophobia, snowy silence, isolation, and cold. It permeates the farmhouse. The landscape is another character in this novel, and I easily visualised it as I read.

There are two stories here—the present day story concerns Leah and how she came to live on the farm; her past bereavements are gradually revealed in measured glimpses. Then there is the tragic story which Leah is increasingly sucked into as she wonders what happened one hundred plus years ago on the farm. Her blood once ran in the veins of the farm folk who lived there. She is tied by her blood to their past.

But the past will not leave her alone; it intrudes her life so much so that she becomes unsure in which year she is living. Through holding and touching ancient creepy objects (like the slaughtering bench), along with the discovery of a dried sprig of mistletoe hidden in a dress pocket, Leah connects the threads of the past in hopes she will learn what happened decades ago on that similarly icy winter. The local villagers gossip about what they thought happened, but Leah is shown the truth in a series of time-slip vignettes. Who is the ghost here? It is as if Leah is becoming one herself. And not all ghosts are full of kindness; they can hurt and maim. One of them will not keep quiet; his story must be told and his name cleared. Leah can make the farm her home if she can lay the ghosts to rest.

I won’t spoil the ending, but there are a few surprises along the way, all wrapped up in a jacket of mistletoe and evocative language which appeals to our five senses.

Overview: Beautifully crafted seasonal novel. Victorian time-slip with gorgeous descriptions of the landscape, the farmhouse, and the scenes of Christmas.

This is a fairly slow moving story which rewards reader’s patience—a slow burn; not action packed.

So if you want a pacey thriller, then this isn’t for you.

I recommend reading this for your Christmas ghost story fix.

4/5 stars

Available on Amazon.

Articles / Guest Post

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Guest Post: UK Ghost Story Festival – Part 2

A Report from Inside the UK Ghost Story Festival by Alyson Faye

Venue: Derby Quad from Friday 29 November, 2019 to Sunday 1 December, 2019.  (@UKGSF1)

Continuing from last Saturday’s post.

At 4pm it was time for thriller writer Sarah Ward’s workshop – Putting the Supernatural into Crime Fiction.

This was one of the high spots for me of the whole weekend, as Sarah offered some really interesting information and tips in this workshop. She has written four D.C. Childs’ novels (which I’ve read) but next year she is shifting genre, and her début Gothic thriller, The Quickening will be published in August, under the pen name Rhiannon Ward. (https://crimepieces.com/). So she is well placed to teach a cross-genre workshop like this one.

First off she asked us to throw out the names of authors who are already writing across the crime/supernatural genres:- Wilkie Collins, John Connolly (Charlie Parker series), Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles, James Herbert, Michelle Paver, J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, Phil Rickman’s Merrilly Watkins, exorcist, series, Christopher Fowler’s Bryant May series and Susan Howatch all got mentioned. I also tossed in a début author I’ve interviewed recently for the Horror Tree site, Anita Frank’s The Lost Ones.

We went on to discuss the conventions of the crime novel mentioning P.D.James’ famous quote of ‘an avenging angel’ for the detective’s role and how a ghost might push the story to a resolution.

Sarah gave us some notes on how much the supernatural element might be realised or left open to interpretation in fiction – and gave us some useful handouts to take away. I do love a tangible handout- it makes me feel 13-years-old again.

I learnt a lot from this workshop and as my writing does incorporate the supernatural which is often inspired by a historic crime this was great match up for me.

Last event of the day- was 7.30-8.30pm Laura Purcell’s interview with the festival’s director, Alex Davies about her writing career to date and her latest book.

I’ve read all three of Laura’s historical thrillers (The Silent Companions/The Corset and Bone China– which came out in September 2019). I have hugely enjoyed all three and would recommend them to horror/supernatural writers if you’ve not tried them yet.

 

 

I also made a new discovery about Laura’s amazing overnight success as an author, it wasn’t overnight! She started writing at 14-years-old with a series of Regency romances and pretty much knew then she wanted to be a writer. But she had been writing a lot of historical fiction for years, (image of one from 2014 below) which she said wasn’t really going anywhere for her, until she hit on, during her research, the real life historical wooden Silent Companions. Here is a link to an article I found on them:-  tps://www.incollect.com/articles/silent-companions.

Laura decided to write about them and a hit was born. She said she was very surprised by the immense success of the book especially as she had a lot of rejections from agents/publishers saying they didn’t want a Gothic story.

Her third novel, Bone China, was inspired by an American doctor in Victorian times who did indeed take a group of sick people to live in a cave in an attempt to cure them.

She found Bone China, was the most challenging of her books to write she said, as it used a dual time line but Laura does enjoy showing how the past impacts the present and how the past lingers. Location is very important to her writing and for Bone China it was the lure of the rugged Cornish landscape and the power of the sea which interested her.

Asked by Alex how she sets about writing a plot, Laura answered that she begins with a plot outline and then develops the characters; she is particularly drawn to the ‘outsider’ characters and characters who walk in ‘the grey areas’ as she likes to explore questionable morals through her characters and those ones make for conflict.

Asked about her writing influences, Laura referenced Daphne Du Maurier (whose work her own has been closely associated with), Susan Hill, and for The Corset she drew on Sarah Waters and Margaret Attwood. Ruth, in that novel, is one of her favourite characters, albeit a difficult one to write or like.

She also praised Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts and once again Michelle Paver got a mention too.

She gave some information about her next book, due in September, 2020.

Its title is:- drum roll here – The Shape of Darkness, it is set in Victorian (not Georgian) Bath, a city Laura loves, and much of the story happens at night. Its main protagonist is a silhouette artist whose clients are dying in mysterious ways so she joins up with a medium, and they both try to find out what’s happening with the deaths. However they raise a darkness they can’t restrain.

Below is a pic of Laura and an example off the internet of a silhouette portrait. (Not one which will appear in Laura’s work).

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/raven-signs-two-more-gothic-chillers-laura-purcell-762546

 

 

 

I for one can’t wait, it sounds just up my spooky alleyway.

From the audience writer/editor Mark Morris asked if Laura would ever set one of her novels in the present day? Laura replied that she’s a bit scared of that, as she knows the Victorian era so well but she likes the idea of writing a time slip story. She felt her new one, had to be Victorian set, as that was the era when old beliefs in spiritualism co-existed with the rise in new tech, like the telegraph service so there was a strange balance between the two and a sense that anything could happen.

Both The Silent Companions and The Corset have been optioned for films- we can only hope they go into production.

When asked how long each book had taken to write, Laura said, The Silent Companions, took longest, with many rewrites; The Corset she wrote in a year, and Bone China a first draft in six months (whilst she edited The Corset and did promo for Companions!!!)

*

That concludes my write up of the first Derby UK Ghost Story Festival- which I loved going to and which should run again next year.

Watch out for it and go along.

My own blog is here at https://alysonfayewordpress.wordpress.com/blog/ and I’m hovering on twitter @AlysonFaye2

Please get in touch if you’d like to chat about writing matters.

Alyson Faye

Alyson lives in the UK; her fiction has been published widely in print anthologies – DeadCades, Women in Horror Annual 2, Trembling with Fear 1 &2, Coffin Bell Journal 1 and Stories from Stone and in ezines, most often on the Horror Tree site, Siren’s Call and The Casket of Fictional Delights. In May 2019 Night of the Rider, was published by Demain, in their Short Sharp Shocks! E book series and reached the amazon kindle top 10 best seller lists. Her work has been read on podcasts (eg Ladies of Horror), shortlisted in competitions and published in charity anthologies. Future work will appear in anthologies from Things in the Well, Mortal Realm and Twisted Wing Publishers.

She performs at open mics, teaches, edits and hangs out with her dog on the moor in all weathers.

https://alysonfayewordpress.wordpress.com/
Twitter @AlysonFaye2

Articles / Guest Post

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Guest Post: UK Ghost Story Festival – Part 1

A Report from Inside the UK Ghost Story Festival by Alyson Faye

Venue: Derby Quad from Friday 29 November, 2019 to Sunday 1 December, 2019.  (@UKGSF1)

This was the début Ghost Story Festival at the Quad Arts Centre in the heart of Derby city centre, where over the weekend a host of author readings, film screenings, panel talks, workshops and author interviews was happening. The event is the brainchild of Alex Davis (@AlexDavis1981) who is the Literature Officer at the Quad and an Associate Lecturer in Creative and Professional Writing at  Derby University. I spoke to Alex during the weekend and I will share his comments a bit later on in this article.

I started off my Friday evening by attending best seller horror writer Adam Nevill’s reading and talk about his latest folk horror novel, The Reddening. (released 31 October, 2019). Nevill read the opening chapters at the mic, ending on a cliffhanger of course, then he talked about the two year journey he’d embarked on when researching and writing the book. He’s a keen walker, kayak-er and swimmer and has explored much of the South Devon coast where he lives. The inspiration for The Reddening, came to him in Kents Cavern, near Torquay ( https://www.kents-cavern.co.uk/) in the middle of a guided tour. The caverns are prehistoric and were once home to our ancestors; when the tour guide switched off all the lights underground, he then played a recording of a hyena- screaming in the darkness. That was the moment when the plot clicked in for Nevill.

He opened the session up to questions from the floor :- which included ones on how hard/easy he finds it to write female protagonists? Answer:- He challenged himself, four books into his career, to switch to a female lead for House of Small Shadows. Which of his books would he like to see filmed? Answer:- No One Gets Out Alive (which he saw as a sister novel to The Ritual).

He talked about the filming of that book, which he’d hoped would get a US cinema release, but was instead sold to Netflix, where it became a slow burn hit. Now six of his back catalogue have been optioned for films. He described this as a ‘game changer’ in his career so far. Nevill referenced M.R.James, Algernon Blackwood, and L.P.Hartley amongst his favourite ghost story writers and of the modern writers, Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger. His latest venture has been turning his hand to writing screenplays of his ideas, first, before he turns them into novels. Doubling up on their potential market value, as he put it.

Afterwards at the author book signing, where I bought The Reddening, I found myself fan-gushing to Nevill about how he began following me on Twitter a few weeks ago and how thrilled I was. He smiled kindly at me.

Saturday was my full-on, 10.30am- 8.30pm day, with a brief break for lunch. There was such a  choice of events that it had been a tough job to pick – I had to, regretfully, opt out of going to the film screenings as I prioritised various panel talks with authors I’ve either/both read or interviewed or met before and choosing a workshop with thriller writer Sarah Ward.

First up, at 10.30am was Supernatural Shorts- with James Everington, Alison Littlewood, Sarah Ward in the chair and Mark Latham.

Discussing their influences growing up, the panel all credited libraries and the experience of  choosing books there whilst growing up, as very important to them; Ramsey Campbell and James Herbert also got mentions. Mark Latham carried his battered copy of the 1972 Fontana book of Ghost Stories (which I remember reading) around with him all day.

The panel discussed the advantages of the short story format for writing ghost stories and their Golden Age in the Victorian era, how ghost stories allow us to explore our relationship with death, and our fears, what clichés to avoid and whether there was a place for humour in the genre. The question of how to write an effective ending divided the panel:- James Everington opted for ambiguity in his endings, Alison Littlewood thought the story’s internal rhythm took you there, and she doesn’t plot her short stories as much as her novels, and Mark Latham talked about the ‘snapshot’ demands of the short story and how he used familiar shorthand settings to speed up the narrative and how he focuses on ‘the unknown not the known’. Recommendations of short story authors from the panel included Paul Tremblay, Lillies by Ian Rowan, Michelle Paver’s Thin Air and Dark Matter and Adam Nevill’s story, ‘Florrie’.

I caught up with Alison Littlewood (http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk/) after the session, as she has kindly agreed to be

interviewed for me for the Horror Tree and I will also be reviewing her latest seasonal ghost novel, the haunting Mistletoe, a copy of which she signed for me. We chatted about her career, her break through book and her current book. More to follow on the Horror Tree site.

Next up for me was the 12-1pm panel who were debating How to develop a great ghost story – with Adam Nevill, Charlotte Baker, Sophie Draper and James Brogden who was the chair. I sat on the front row, which probably slightly concerned Adam Nevill, but at the end he asked me ‘Did it all make sense?’ i.e. his advice and yes, it did. In fact it was very useful and on point. (I had previously attended another Alex Davis organised workshop in Nottingham where Sophie Draper, author of two Derbyshire set thrillers, Cuckoo and Magpie, and Charlotte Baker had been workshop leaders).

The panel listed their influences as Susan Hill, Shirley Jackson, Michelle Paver (Sophie)’ The Blair Witch Project (film), The Lovely Bones and James Herbert’s The Secret of Crickley Hall (book and film and a favourite of mine) (Charlotte); M.R.James had been read to Adam Nevill by his father, and he also loves H.R.Wakefield, Robert Aickman, Walter de la Mare, Algernon Blackwood and Sarah Waters.

Asked what characterised a ghost story the panel offered :- a preoccupation with the past, spooky atmosphere, a sense of the unknown, and Nevill said it had to ‘inflict dread and terror on the reader.’

The writers have all done some unusual research in their time for the sake of their novels – Sophie about a coin called The Puppet Rider (Magpie), Charlotte on flies and decomposing bodies and Adam Nevill at one time had 36 books out from the library all on witchcraft.

Asked how they each start their their own ghost story- Charlotte begins with her characters, and history, often tied to old buildings and asks herself ‘what if ghosts are attached to events?’ Sophie believes however that the setting is paramount and draws on her own knowledge of folklore. Magpie was located very much on her own doorstep, but her next novel, her third, she told me is set in Staffordshire. Adam Nevill creates a recognisable settings and then incrementally inserts weird and unsettling events so that when the supernormal crosses over the line, it works and the reader accepts it as the norm and buys into it.

 

 

After this session I hit the Quad bar café for lunch and a mini interview with Lewis Williams, one of the founders of Corona Books. (https://www.coronabooks.com/) who was there with his business partner, Sue Eaton to give a talk on ‘Editing a Horror Anthology’ and to promote the latest anthology from Corona. The Third Corona Book of Horror Stories (published October 2019).

Interview with Lewis Williams of Corona Books.

 (Reveal- I had myself submitted to the call out for this anthology and though I didn’t make the final cut I did receive a polite and lovely email saying that they had been overwhelmed by the 800 plus story submissions they’d received and that my story had made the long list of the final 50 ‘honourable mentions’ and it would be listed at the rear of the anthology).

Lewis wrote in his email: “We’re a very small publishing business and one that’s committed to publishing as much great writing by indie authors in the horror and sci-fi genres as we can.”

I asked Lewis to talk about why he’d set up Corona in 2015. (Note:- the cover (image above) by the way is a homage to all those classic paperback Pan/Fontana anthologies).

Lewis said he has a great love for sci-fi and horror and he was aware there was a wealth of talent out there which with a bit of help and editing could be even better and he was keen to promote that.

His business partner, Sue Eaton, is a former teacher (like me) and has had her work performed on Radio 4. She is a huge Dr Who fan, Matt Smith is her favourite (mine’s Tom Baker of course).

Asked about the future for Corona, Lewis promised (and I said I would quote his very words) that ‘as long as my heart is beating’ there will be an annual Corona anthology.

So, would-be horror/sci-fi writers, go follow them on twitter @CoronaBooksUK and keep an eye out for their call outs.

They are an indie horror press to watch out for run by committed, enthusiastic folk.

After lunch I was off to a 3-4pm panel talk on History in the Making? What relevance does the ghost story have today? The panel on this one was – Paul Kane, Laura Purcell, Mark Latham with Sophie Draper in the chair.

Asked what their favourite contemporary ghost stories were the panel opted for Ghoster by Jason Arnopp, published October 2019 and a new one for me, though I’ve ordered my copy and it has been garnering great reviews.

(Paul), Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts (Laura), Michelle Paver’s Dark Matter from Mark and Sophie mentioned Susan Hill and Shirley Jackson whose stories she has recently got into.

Asked about the enduring popularity of the ghost story the panel commented that people enjoy the need to be unsettled, the fear of the unknown and there is a trend towards genre mash ups (Latham) where the settings have become more innovative. (Alien is a ghost story in space.) These days technology is changing the content of ghost stories -e.g. Transcendence – is your soul in the machine? Or is it really you? or are you the ghost? There is the tech to reproduce the images of dead actors in new films and new gadgets give writers a fresh spin on old tropes.

Mark talked at length about the internet urban legend of ‘Creepypasta’ which has been spread by memes, gamers and you tubers as an example of the twenty-first century equivalent of the Victorian fireside story. Laura Purcell for her research on Bone China had immersed herself in the video game Dear Esther and Sophie  suggested that social media was the new version of the traditional oral storytelling. Twitter was mentioned as a way of writers adapting ghost stories to the tiny original 140 characters length and doing it well and Joe Hill’s short story Twittering from the Circus of the Dead was referenced, which he wrote entirely as a series of tweets.

The consensus is that ghost stories will embrace whatever the new tech is and adapt to continue in some format or another to tap into our darkest fears.

*

Sarah Ward’s workshop was next up but before that I did a mini interview with the festival’s driving  force Alex Davis.

Interview with Alex Davis

I asked Alex how long he’d been planning this festival? It turned out it has been a bit of a dream of his, and he’s wanted to run one for years and has been discussing it with the Quad team. He’s already the founder of the two Derby Quad-based horror conventions (and sci-fi) the summer Edge-lit and the winter, Sledge-lit (both of which I have been to) but one focussing purely on the ghost story form took some putting together and he said it had been a big decision to replace this year’s Sledge-lit with this instead. He wanted it to have wide appeal, ideally in the winter season, but in the end he suspected he’s programmed what he himself would like to see and go to.

He had a key hot wish-list of authors to invite:- Adam Nevill, Laura Purcell, Andrew Michael Hurley (author of The Loney) who I simply couldn’t manage to fit in seeing this time but I have seen him twice before at other events and happily they all agreed to attend.

Being aware that ghost stories cross different media i.e. books, films, Alex wanted a pop in/drop in option for attendees and a dedicated weekend pass so that he could attract both the committed writers/readers and a more casual audience and hopefully the festival would appeal to folk living in Derby itself. He believed he’s succeeded as the events (all of them, I think) were sold out and there was a mixture of weekend passes (like me and my Otley writing group mates, Martin and Jo) and casual one-offs, come for one event and a drink in the bar).

Other people, like writer Johnny Mains, came along and pitched a talk idea to Alex which became ‘How to find the Hidden- researching ghost stories) and Alex booked him in into the schedule.

It is, Alex believed, one of the main dedicated themed writing festivals in the UK and he aims to run it every year and plans go international with his author invites.

(Well, I did get to see Paul Tremblay at the Quad last year).

If anyone can do it Alex Davis can, with his drive and enthusiasm for the world of horror, sci-fi and fantasy.

Look out for Part 2 of Alyson Faye’s write-up of the Ghost Festival, next Saturday. (As a previous attendee of Edge-lit and Sledge-lit, I’m really disappointed I couldn’t go – Steph)

Alyson Faye

Alyson lives in the UK; her fiction has been published widely in print anthologies – DeadCades, Women in Horror Annual 2, Trembling with Fear 1 &2, Coffin Bell Journal 1 and Stories from Stone and in ezines, most often on the Horror Tree site, Siren’s Call and The Casket of Fictional Delights. In May 2019 Night of the Rider, was published by Demain, in their Short Sharp Shocks! E book series and reached the amazon kindle top 10 best seller lists. Her work has been read on podcasts (eg Ladies of Horror), shortlisted in competitions and published in charity anthologies. Future work will appear in anthologies from Things in the Well, Mortal Realm and Twisted Wing Publishers.

She performs at open mics, teaches, edits and hangs out with her dog on the moor in all weathers.

https://alysonfayewordpress.wordpress.com/
Twitter @AlysonFaye2

Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Body Farm Z

Disclosure:

Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: Body Farm Z
Author: Deborah Sheldon
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Severed Press
Release Date: 17.8.19

Synopsis: To solve murders, you must understand the process of decomposition. Australia’s newest body farm, the Victorian Taphonomic Experimental Research Institute, is hidden in bushland some four hours’ drive from Melbourne. Scattered across its 150 acres are human donor cadavers and pig carcasses arranged to mimic some of the ways in which police might find murder victims: exposed to the elements, buried in a shallow grave, wrapped in tarpaulin. Forensic scientists and graduate students meticulously track each stage of putrefaction. Today, Detective Rick Evans of the Homicide Squad is at VITERI for the re-creation of one of his cold cases. A human donor will be locked inside a car. But the donor has other ideas… So begins a facility-wide outbreak of the reanimated dead.

“Madam?” he whispered….

She fixed her gaze on him and bared her teeth.

This is a zombie thriller which breaks a few of the genre’s tropes:- it’s set in the outback in Australia (a four hour drive from Melbourne) for a start, and utilises the Australian flora and fauna as an important part of the storyline; so straight away the zombie outbreak isn’t happening in  shopping centres or cities. The zombies are in various states of decay so they’re not homogeneous; some are faster than others. Just like humans. The guy who takes charge, well he’s not that capable really, just an ordinary cop out of his depth and there’s no military help on hand at the Victorian Taphonomic Experimental Research Institute (VITERI) – a site so secret it doesn’t have an address. 

Deborah Sheldon has written a fast moving, entertaining, high octane adventure ride of a novel. It starts off as a straightforward police forensics thriller – where a pair of Aussie cops ( likeable Rick Evans and his loquaciously irritating partner) are visiting a ‘Body Farm’ as part of their day job. A Farm is where large numbers of cadavers are scattered around and/or buried and thereafter scientifically examined for decay etc. by the team of scientists on staff, in order to help solve  murders. This is a bit weird but feasible. 

But then the story gets a whole lot weirder, as the narrative tilts and tips the reader right into an on-site zombie outbreak (what’s dropping from the strange clouds gathering over the farm?) and from now on the Farm’s staff and the visiting cops have to adapt very fast to fighting the undead – some of whom are pretty nippy, some less so. But none of them are friendly.

So this is now a full-on zombie novel, including a cast of zombie birds and possums and other animals (zombie kangaroo anyone?)

In an unusual twist, Sheldon has written one of the characters, a Prof, (who is amongst those who gets bitten) in such a way that we get to follow his zombie transformation from inside his own head, and how he sees/feels it. This draws you in and builds up empathy with one of the zombies, because for the Prof. and his friends, it’s a tragedy and we really feel for him. 

Deborah Sheldon writes with total confidence and builds up what seems at first an unlikely scenario skilfully, she blends in dollops of scientific language and research and fills the narrative with 3D characters you can root for- two of my favourites, being Stella (the Institute’s secretary) and Walter. Her female characters are feisty and hold their own too. No shrinking violets here.

The ending may not offer every reader satisfactory closure, but I thought it effective and maybe leaves the door open for a sequel?

This is enormous fun and if you like horror, zombies, thrillers, action, cold cases, and lots of excitement then download this novel.

Yes worth the buy.

5/5 stars

Available on Book Shop and Amazon.

Interviews

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The Horror Tree Presents… an Interview with Anita Frank

Hi Anita, welcome to the Horror Tree and thank you for agreeing to chat about your début novel, The Lost Ones, which is due out on Halloween – 31 October and is published by HQ aka HarperCollins.

Thank you for having me!

How long has The Lost Ones been in the making? From the initial idea through its writing to final publication?

I’d had sketches of the main characters – Stella, Annie and Tristan – milling around in my mind for a while, and I had thought up a few random scenes, but it wasn’t until January 2017 that I started trying to incorporate them into a proper story. Three months later I had completed a first draft, but in truth it wasn’t very good – a bit Casper the Friendly Ghost meets Nancy Drew! So, I ripped it up, replotted and started afresh at the end of September 2017. I submitted the finished manuscript eight months later.

What’s the experience been like of reading the amazing early reviews to the book? How exciting is the upcoming launch? Will there be a party?

There is to be a party! My launch is taking place at the wonderful Goldsboro Books in London, and I’m really looking forward to it – not least because I will (at last!) get to meet some of the fantastic members of the Twitter writing community who have become my ‘virtual’ friends over the past twelve months.

The response to the book so far has exceeded my wildest dreams, so I am thrilled to bits and extremely grateful to everyone who has taken the time to read and review it. That said, reading is very subjective, and I totally appreciate it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

How much research did you do for the novel? With the era it is set in? (Note – 1917, England, while the Great War rages abroad). You depict a microcosm of social history too, with the different classes living under one roof at Greyswick- did you need to read about this aspect?

I’ve always loved history, particularly social history, and studied it for my degree, so a lot of what is contained in The Lost Ones is knowledge accumulated over a good number of years, though I did supplement it by drawing on relevant memoirs and histories.

You also movingly depict an injured war veteran (Tristan Sheers) who visits the house to debunk the ghost theory. Again, did you research the post-war lives of such men?

I’m certainly no specialist, but I’ve long been interested in the First World War, and those that served in and survived it, so again, I’ve read histories, memoirs, watched documentaries etc for many, many years. I also visited the Imperial War Museum, which has fascinating displays on this conflict, including the pioneering work done to improve artificial limbs, for which there was an unprecedented demand at this time.

Did you have a favourite character in The Lost Ones?

Oh my! That’s like asking if I have a favourite child! I really enjoyed writing Lady Brightwell, and I do have a soft spot for Tristan!

Is writing something you always saw yourself doing? Or has going in this direction surprised you?

Being a writer is all I’ve ever wanted to do, but increasingly a lack of confidence held me back. I submitted a couple of awful Mills and Boon style romances when I was in my late teens, which were of course rejected, and some years later won a competition run by my local library in association with Historical Mills and Boon, though, again, they declined to take the finished manuscript. Shortly after that my son, who was eighteen months old at the time, was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy that was to leave him severely mentally disabled. Caring for him, and looking after my two older girls, took all my time and energy. I used to daydream about being published, but I was too afraid to pursue my ambition – while I didn’t try, I couldn’t fail, and so I could keep my dream alive. A friend then pointed out that if I didn’t try, I would never know, and she encouraged me to write my ghost story. I hadn’t written anything for over twelve years so even completing a manuscript felt like a major achievement. The best I was hoping for when I sent The Lost Ones off to agents was some feedback on my submission – having it go the distance to publication has been an incredible turn of events.

I read online that you did your History degree at UEA (where I also studied); which periods are you most drawn to? Is historical fiction your favourite genre of choice for reading and then for your own writing?

Always lovely to encounter another UEA graduate! Historical fiction is definitely my go-to genre, but I do try and read outside of it as well, so I’ll happily dip into anything – thrillers, rom-coms, women’s fiction, literary fiction – with a premise that appeals, to be honest! Most of my story ideas have historical settings – usually somewhere between 1800 and 1950.

Which other authors do you enjoy reading? Both now as an adult and when you were growing up?

Growing up I loved Enid Blyton, David Eddings, The Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and I read a lot of Vietnam memoirs as well. Now, Anita Shreve, Sarah Waters, Kate Riordan, Laura Purcell, Kate Morton and John Boyne are among my favourites and I do love indulging in a good Georgette Heyer every now and then!

Do you have a daily writing routine? Or place you write? Pen or pc? In silence or with music on? Coffee or tea breaks?

I mainline tea – not so much ‘a break’ as a constant infusion. I don’t have a strict routine as such because it very much depends on how my boy is doing that day and what sort of night he’s had, but generally, I get him into school (which can be any time from 9am – 12pm!), come home and try and get cracking as soon as possible. I write on a pc (my handwriting is appalling), sitting on the sofa in the lounge. I work in silence. Whilst I find music inspirational, it would prove too distracting to write to.

Do you watch films? If so, are you a fan of ghost stories? There has been a mini renaissance lately in those sort of films like The Conjuring franchise, starring Annabelle, Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, The Babadook, Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger and of course The Woman in Black.

You write, I thought, rather cinematically, (just my opinion) and I wondered if you drew on films you’ve seen consciously or not?

I love watching television and films, and I do love ghost stories – inevitable I guess, having grown up in a haunted house – but if something fails to grab me, I don’t tend to stick with it – that’s The Haunting of Hill House I’m afraid! I watched the first few episodes, but then gave up on it. I enjoyed The Enfield Haunting, and I liked The Awakening and The Woman in Black – I’ve yet to see The Little Stranger, but I’m looking forward to that. I’m not much of a horror fan though. I’m not interested in gruesome, or something scaring the pants off me, I’m interested in the mystery that lies behind the haunting – what might cause a spirit to linger – and I think that’s very much reflected in The Lost Ones.

I do have a vivid imagination, so I tend to ‘see’ the scenes as – to quote Miss Saigon – ‘a movie in my mind’, and I try to describe as accurately as I can what I’m visualising. I used to do a lot of amateur acting and improvising too, so the dialogue I write might reflect that. I do try and draw on the world around me, and there may well be some subconscious calling on things I’ve watched, but I certainly can’t say I do it consciously. I would imagine that would apply to most people involved in a creative process though; it’s inevitable we are influenced by the things we are exposed to, to some degree or other.

How involved are you with social media? Where can readers follow you?

It’s on my ‘to-do’ list, so I hope to have a Facebook page and website before too long. I am active on Twitter and would very much welcome followers @Ajes74

Do you have any tips for aspiring writers, especially those trying to get their first novel accepted?

Edit. Edit. Edit. And then edit some more. The one piece of advice I read but never took, and really wish I had, was: ‘once you’ve finished your book, put it away for a month’. That break will help you see your work in a new light, and I can guarantee there will be things you’ve missed that scream out at you when you come back to it. I never edited my manuscript enough before sending it out, and it cost me opportunities – I had a couple of full requests within the first week of submission, and I had to respond with a manuscript which had been hastily edited, and which was completely unpolished. Unsurprisingly those initial requests resulted in rejections. I learnt the ‘edit, edit, edit’ lesson the hard way!

Make sure your cover letter is professional – no gimmicks! Your letter is the first opportunity you have of convincing an agent that you know what you’re doing and that it’s worth their while taking your submission seriously. Try and create a one-line pitch for your book to catch the agent’s attention, include some examples of comparable novels to show you understand where your book would sit in the market, and then captivate them in with some brilliant blurb.

Find your tribe. Writing can be a very lonely exercise. Reach out to people who are on the same journey, so you can share the ups and downs with them and support each other with honest beta reading. Be prepared to take on board criticism, but at the end of the day, you will have to decide when to take advice and when to follow your gut. It’s your book.

Do you have a writing group (either in person or online) you turn to for support and feedback?

I am very lucky to have a friend who also writes living five minutes away from me. She was the one who cajoled me into writing The Lost Ones in the first place, and then challenged me to do better after having read my original draft. I really wouldn’t be where I am today without her encouragement and support.

I am also very happy and very proud to be a member of the Virtual Writing Group, who can be found on Twitter at @virtwriting. They are an AMAZING group of writers, many of whom are now enjoying success, and believe me, there’s lots more to come! They are so supportive and such great fun – I would be lost without them!

What are you currently working on?  

I’m currently working on my second book which is set during the Second World War. It’s not a ghost story!

Find out more about The Lost Ones here.