Monthly Archives: April 2021

The Irresistible Summons: Prologue

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My horror/supernatural thriller novel The Irresistible Summons has recently been re-released with a new cover. It’s probably the scariest of my ghostly gothic mysteries, particularly in the final section of the book. However, here’s the prologue, which I promise it’s safe to read even if your nerves aren’t up to reading the rest of the novel.

FIRE INVESTIGATION CONCLUDES: TRAGIC ACCIDENT

A tragic electrical accident started the fire that consumed 22 Bainbridge Close, fire brigade investigators have ruled. The inferno, which killed all members of the Lane family, shocked the local community to its core, on the 17th September 2001. In their concluding remarks, investigators once again reiterated the importance of fitting smoke alarms and urged for campaigns to raise awareness.

Naomi stood at Toby Lane’s grave, clutching the same tattered local newspaper article she had read again and again over the past year. Murky skies blocked out the sun and a chill wind blew in from the east. St Mary’s church – a medieval granite building with a pointed bell tower – loomed behind her. Tree branches creaked and blew in the wind, amid a light drizzle. Naomi’s eyes fell on the article again.

‘I know there were smoke alarms. I remember seeing them just before we…’

Her voice faltered. The memories were overpowering. She had been sixteen, Toby seventeen. Out of the corner of her eye, she had glimpsed said smoke alarms during a moment when she had been greatly distracted by other matters. But the alarms had been there, even if she had only seen them for a second before her eyes closed.

Naomi had been too overwhelmed with shock and grief to tell anyone about the smoke alarms. Nor did she have reason to think there was anything suspicious about the way the fire brigade had arrived at an incorrect conclusion.

For many months, Toby’s memory tormented the utterly broken-hearted Naomi. She half-expected to see him in the streets, on the beach, in the woods, or the other secret places they had visited together. When she was alone, Naomi imagined Toby’s spirit in the room with her. She would hold imaginary conversations with him, anticipating responses and acting as though he were really present.

Often these conversations were later followed by dreams. In these dreams, Naomi conversed with Toby, clinging to every moment they had together, willing herself not to wake up.

During one such dream, Toby spoke a single sentence that haunted her throughout the years that followed.

We can be together again.

For a long time Naomi wondered if this was a subconscious, suicidal urge to join Toby in death. But as months went by, she became less convinced, and eventually dismissed the dream as little more than a small, desperate part of her burning love that refused to be entirely snuffed out by the passage of time.

‘I miss you,’ she whispered.

Naomi welled up as she placed a handful of crocuses next to the gravestone, knowing Toby would have understood the significance.

A tall figure in dark robes ambled along the nearby path. Reverend Patrick Mortimer had presided over the Lane family funeral. His bony, severe cheekbones had frightened her as a child, but now she observed a comforting warmth in his hazel eyes.

‘A year to the day,’ said Reverend Mortimer. ‘Still hard to take in, isn’t it? Thousands of people die in New York. Then six days later, our community experiences a tragedy just as devastating, in its own way.’

Naomi nodded. ‘I feel like part of me is still missing.’

‘Part of you always will be. People talk about getting over the loss of a loved one, but that isn’t how it works.’

‘So what can I do?’ Fresh tears filled Naomi’s eyes. She didn’t know the vicar well, and she knew her parents would much prefer she had a conversation such as this with one of their own congregation rabbis. Yet she felt drawn to the Reverend, perhaps on account of his refreshing bluntness.

‘The distance of time will enable you to come to terms with it,’ said Reverend Mortimer. ‘Then you will see the life of the person as someone who entered your life for a season, and was important. But they will always be missing, so a part of you will be too.’

‘It hurts so much,’ said Naomi.

‘Of course it hurts. If I cut off your finger, that would hurt too. In time the skin and flesh would heal, and you would no longer feel pain. But you would still be missing a finger.’

The words Toby had spoken in the dream returned to her mind.

We can be together again.

‘Do you believe in life after death?’

The Reverend smiled. ‘I’d be pretty bad at my job if I said no.’

‘What about ghosts?’

‘I don’t believe the dead return to watch over the living. Yet there are spirits in this world of an altogether different origin.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean be careful what you wish for, Naomi Levinson.’

With those words, the Reverend turned and walked away. Naomi stared after him for a second and then returned her gaze to Toby’s headstone. 1984 – 2001. A short life for someone with such promise. What had God been thinking, allowing him to die in a house fire? Naomi’s parents had brought her up to believe in God, but right now she found it difficult to believe he cared about humans, especially someone as lonely as her. Toby Lane had understood her, and she had trusted him completely. Now that he was gone, the isolation felt all but unbearable.

Yet over time, Reverend Mortimer was proven correct. Although Naomi felt as though she had a spiritual missing limb, the pain eased. When she eventually came to terms with the loss of Toby, she no longer gave the Lane family smoke alarms a second thought. Only years later did the tragic events of the 17th of September 2001 cast their sinister shadow over the present.

Intrigued? Here’s the blurb from the back of the novel:

How far would you go to bring the one you love back from the dead?

Television producer Naomi Levinson makes documentaries debunking the supernatural. When asked to film a promotional video for computer game company Persephone, she considers the task beneath her talents. But as production gets underway at the Persephone office block on London’s Canary Wharf, a mysterious disappearance, ghostly sightings, and lingering tragedy from Naomi’s past lead her to believe she might have stumbled into a genuine haunting.

As Naomi continues to investigate, past and present collide in a horrifying conspiracy. Cutting edge technology and ancient evil meet, leading to the discovery of a shocking and terrifying secret that could change the nature of life and death as we know it.

To pick up your copy of The Irresistible Summons in paperback or ebook click here (in the UK), and here (in the US). Or you can click here, to download the book from Smashwords.

Spectre of Springwell Forest: First Six Chapters

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Here are the first few paragraphs of my recently re-released ghostly gothic mystery horror novel Spectre of Springwell Forest.

“These days, the run-up to Christmas feels bittersweet. As a young girl, I looked forward to the season with unclouded excitement. Upon reaching adulthood, I adopted a more cynical view. This ancient pagan festival that had once been appropriated by the Church now seemed dominated by capitalist interests. Yet, there came an all too brief time, during the early part of my first marriage, when these misgivings all but vanished, due to becoming a mother. Seeing festive celebrations through the eyes of a child triggered a temporary truce with the more commercial aspects of the season. Cynicism, in those years, took a back seat.

That was before the events of Springwell Forest.

I have long since come to terms with the past, but the way Christmas is here today and gone tomorrow has a melancholy bordering on cruelty, reflecting the cruelty of what took place all those decades ago.

Such thoughts lurked in my mind like background noise, amid the bustle of crowds in the busy pedestrianised streets at the centre of Exeter. A bitter frost clung to the pavements and windows, and I found myself shivering beneath the baubles, wreaths, and coloured lights decorating the streets. My husband, Andy, sped up a little as we walked; his gloved hand in mine, keen to get out of the cold.

Usually when driving to the centre of town, we park in one of the side streets, but on this occasion, the sheer busyness of the place rendered the usual benefits of local knowledge useless. We were forced to park in the multi-storey car park, which meant a brisk ten-minute walk to the cinema. Andy kept glancing at his watch, concerned we might miss the start of the film.

I didn’t particularly care if we did. It was only a silly Hollywood horror film, one of those daft supernatural possession stories with loads of jumpy moments. I find them funny rather than frightening, perhaps because they are so far removed from the horrible reality I once experienced…”

You can read the rest of Chapter 1, and indeed Chapters 2 to 6, in Illumination Book Chapters, a new Medium publication. Here are the links.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

I hope you enjoy these chapters. The full novel is available in paperback or ebook here (in the UK), and here (in the US). Or you can click here, to download the book from Smashwords.

New Covers: Spectre of Springwell Forest, Phantom Audition, The Irresistible Summons

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Three of my gothic mystery horror/thriller novels have recently been unavailable, for tedious legal reasons not worth wringing my hands over in this blog post. However, the good news is they are back, having received a make-over with new covers, courtesy of the brilliant Yasmine Nuoraho.

Here are each of the new covers, with an introduction to each novel, to whet your appetite.

Spectre of Springwell Forest

Exeter, 2010. Lily Parker learns that her daughter Olivia is to move to the village of Springwell, near Plymouth. To the surprise of her husband Andy, this sends Lily into terrified despair. She tells him that Olivia must not move to Springwell, under any circumstances. Andy wants to know why, and Lily tells him what happened to her many decades previously, in 1979, warning him that she has a horrifying secret that she had previously hoped to take with her to the grave.

In 1979, Lily and her then six-year-old daughter Olivia, along with her first husband Tom Henderson, move to the sleepy village of Springwell. Here they meet a tight- lipped community of secretive villagers who seem to have something to hide. Lily discovers a painting of an abandoned railway tunnel in her attic, by a local artist, Alison Merrifield. Lily is strangely drawn to the painting, particularly the dark maw of the tunnel, and ends up hanging the picture in her hallway.

After meeting her neighbour and other mothers dropping their children at the local primary school, Lily is surprised to learn they all have similar paintings in their homes, all of them painted by Alison Merrifield, all of them showing the same abandoned railway tunnel. The other mothers dismiss this as something of a village in-joke, and when Lily visits Alison in her local craft shop, Alison herself insists she cannot understand why the paintings of the abandoned tunnel are so popular. But Lily senses she is being lied to.

Shortly afterwards, when Lily and Olivia go for a walk in the local forest, they come across a fenced off area in the heart of the woods where the barbed wire has been mysteriously torn apart. Investigating further inside the fenced off section, they discover the very same abandoned railway tunnel of the painting and enter the tunnel. A disturbing incident follows (which I won’t spoil).

After this incident, back home, Lily starts to make out a mysterious figure emerging from the railway tunnel in the painting. As time passes, the eerie figure becomes more clearly defined, but Lily is disturbed to discover no-one can see it but her. Worse still, as the sinister figure is revealed, Olivia starts to behave in an increasingly alarming manner.

To pick up your copy of Spectre of Springwell Forest in paperback or ebook click here (in the UK), and here (in the US). Or you can click here, to download the book from Smashwords.

Phantom Audition

Small-time actress Mia Yardley, recently widowed wife of renowned actor Steven Yardley, grieves in his ancestral family home, Elm House, near Plymouth. Her husband’s inexplicable suicide left her in possession of a considerable fortune, but she is unsettled. Her sister-in-law Jemima is openly hostile, and Mia also senses disapproval from hired staff, especially de facto housekeeper Liza. Only Verity, a part-time maid, is friendly to Mia, seeming genuinely sorry about the death of Steven.

Mia discovers Steven’s secret acting diary. It details appointments made with a psychic medium, Etta, who advised Steven on which roles to take. Mia visits Etta to question her over mysterious diary entries that hint at a more supernatural reason for Steven’s demise. Etta rejects such claims, but Mia senses she is hiding something, and explains as much to her best friend Bronwyn, when they go out horse riding. Mia also begins to see manifestations of what she believes to be Steven’s ghost in and around Elm House, and also at a nightclub.

Mia’s therapist tells her the visions of Steven are psychological, not spiritual. But Mia isn’t convinced, and begins an investigation into her husband’s death that gradually becomes an obsession. She uncovers the alarming story behind the last role her husband took, but every answer leads to more questions, opening dangerous doors to a labyrinthine world of terrible secrets. The deeper Mia digs into they mystery, the deeper she disappears inside her own inner darkness, crossing thresholds from which there can be no return.

To pick up your copy of Phantom Audition in paperback or ebook click here (in the UK), and here (in the US). Or you can click here, to download the book from Smashwords.

The Irresistible Summons

Teenager Naomi Levinson laments the death of her boyfriend, Toby Lane. Toby and his entire family perished in a mysterious house fire, which Naomi comes to believe may have been started deliberately.

Several years later, Naomi is now an accomplished television producer making documentaries debunking the supernatural. When a shoot interviewing a possibly possessed killer in prison goes terribly wrong, the production company Naomi works for faces a lawsuit and possible closure.

Offered what could be her last job, Naomi is initially reluctant to take on filming a promotional video for computer game company Persephone. She considers the task beneath her talents. However, after production gets underway at the Persephone office block on London’s Canary Wharf, strange things begin to happen.

One member of staff inexplicably disappears. Ghosts are sighted, one of whom appears to be Toby. This re-opens old emotional wounds for Naomi, bringing back bittersweet memories of her strictly religious messianic Jewish parents, who disapproved of her teenage lover.

A horrifying conspiracy is gradually revealed. Cutting edge technology and ancient evil meet, leading to the discovery of a shocking and terrifying secret – one that could change the nature of life and death as we know it.

To pick up your copy of The Irresistible Summons in paperback or ebook click here (in the UK), and here (in the US). Or you can click here, to download the book from Smashwords.