My recently released book Infestation: A Horror Anthology features my Infestation novella – a six-chapter sci-fi horror tale – along with five other short stories. Continuing this series unpacking each story in the collection, this week I expound a little on Influencer.
Janice Hopper is a young, Oxford-based social media influencer with a considerable following. Manufacturing an online persona that is on-trend and relevant, her writing has proved popular and lucrative. However, to say she is prone to exaggeration in her writing, stretching the truth to breaking point, would be an understatement. When an online commenter accuses her of lying in a piece about sexual abuse, events escalate into a nail-biting tale of stalking and revenge.
A previously unpublished story exclusive to this volume, Influencer draws on themes of wealth, privilege, and self-deluded, self-justifying narcissism. A series of shocking and satirical twists make this a distinct, singular take on the overall theme of guilt running through the stories in the Infestation volume.
Influencer draws inspiration from noir novels and the cycle of psycho-horror thrillers from the late 1980s and early 1990s – think Fatal Attraction, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Single White Female, and Martin Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear. It also nods to satirical elements in recent TV thrillers such as Netflix’s You. Influencer is certainly the most darkly comic tale in this collection. However, I’d argue the undercurrent of suspense and dread, not to mention the bloody finale, push it firmly into the horror bracket.
Infestation: A Horror Anthology is available on Kindle and paperback from Amazon here (in the UK) and here (in the US). It can also be ordered via Smashwords here.
A new anthology containing some of my horror short stories has just been released.
Infestation: A Horror Anthology primarily contains my science fiction horror novella Infestation; recently serialised in the Fictions publication on Medium. The collection also includes two entirely new short stories exclusive to this volume, as well as other previously published tales.
Infestation is set in the near future. No one knows where the giant spider nests came from, but nations are adjusting to the challenge of living alongside dangerous oversized arachnids.
A mercenary desperate for money to purchase medical treatments that can save his wife is hired by an influential businessman. His objective: Infiltrate a spider nest on a mission of vengeance.
Alongside the Infestationnovella, this volume also features the following short stories.
White Horse – Raven, a supporting character from my gothic mystery novel The Irresistible Summons, gets her own spinoff here, in a new, previously unpublished story. This is a standalone spooky mystery, with no prior knowledge of the novel required.
Influencer – Another new, previously unpublished tale. This one has a slightly satirical edge, and concerns a social media influencer who takes bending the truth a little too far.
Regression – An English teacher is haunted by a terrible secret from his past. Previously published on Medium.
Spinner – A graphic designer in an abusive relationship investigates a malevolent supernatural force in her basement. Previously published on Medium.
Once in a Lifetime – After inexplicably awakening inside a different home with a different wife, a man experiences an existential crisis, as new memories replace old. Previously published by Dragon Soul Press, as part of their All Dark Places horror anthology.
For those of you that don’t have a Medium subscription, this is an ideal opportunity for you to see some of my horror stories that have been published on that site. I’ve also released this partly in response to those who wanted to get my work as an ebook or in print. The anthology clocks in at around 77,000 words, so is good value.
I’ve selected the stories around the theme of guilt, and will discuss that a little further, as well as provide more information on each story, in upcoming articles. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this collection.
Infestation: A Horror Anthology is available on Kindle and paperback from Amazon here (in the UK) and here (in the US). It can also be ordered via Smashwords here.
Many of my novels draw on history for their narratives, particularly the local history of where I live, in southwest England. Here are three examples of more fascinating historic footnotes that I appropriated, and massaged a little, for inclusion in my stories. The first two are from novels presently available, and the last one is from a manuscript I am holding on to for the time being.
The Dissolving of Buckfast Abbey (referenced in Uncle Flynn)
The facts: Henry VIII went about dissolving many Catholic monasteries during his reign. One of these was Buckfast Abbey, in the village of Buckfastleigh, on the southern borders of Dartmoor, which is a short distance east of where I live. The Abbey was dissolved by Sir William Petre, who in 1539, under instructions from the King, seized considerable amounts of gold which were subsequently taken to the Tower of London. William Petre later retired to the south-west. The Abbey was restored in the 1800s.
My fiction: In Uncle Flynn, the protagonist, eleven-year-old Max, and his mysterious adventurer uncle (who apparently has the police on his tail), uncover clues to hidden treasure written by a monk at the time of the dissolution. He supposedly took a vast amount of the Abbey’s gold, along with priceless Catholic library manuscripts, and buried them in a secret location on Dartmoor. This local legend is supported by William Petre’s supposed obsession with trying to locate this treasure that slipped through his fingers during the dissolution. It also explains why he chose to retire in the southwest.
Slaves of Lundy Island (referenced in The Thistlewood Curse)
The facts: Lundy Island is a tiny island on the Bristol coast, about three miles long and half a mile wide. It is sparsely populated, with limited local amenities, including a church, the Marisco Tavern, and a small airstrip where helicopters can land. Lundy Castle has since been divided into holiday homes. Electricity is only available at certain times of day, and there is no mobile phone signal (though there is a radio in the tavern).
Lundy has a rich and fascinating history, but one episode informed The Thistlewood Curse more than any other. Thomas Benson was an MP for Barnstaple when he owned Lundy in the 18th century. He also traded from the North Devon port of Bideford after inheriting a family fortune. His vessels transported tobacco, but he also kept a slave workforce on Lundy procured from convicts he was supposed to transport to America. After getting involved in smuggling, Benson’s misdeeds were discovered but managed to escape justice by fleeing abroad.
My fiction: Thomas Benson becomes Henry Thistlewood in my novel. As per real life, he secretly holds convicts intended for transportation to Virginia and uses them as slaves on the island. However, I devised the background for a ghost story: One slave, Jeremiah Adams, is executed with medieval barbarity after allegedly raping Thistlewood’s wife Cora. Whilst enduring death agonies, Adams curses the Thistlewood family line, swearing he will return to wipe them out.
In the present day, Henry Thistlewood’s descendant, Charles Thistlewood, son of Lord Alfred Thistlewood, mysteriously drops dead, having suffered an inexplicable heart attack. His wife Sally is an old friend of protagonist Detective Laura Buchan. Despite the doctor claiming Charles’s death is an open and shut case of tragic heart attack, Sally suspects foul play and asks Laura to come and secretly investigate, during Charles’s funeral. Laura brings along another childhood friend of theirs, paranormal investigator Lawrence Crane, who uses astral projection to try and discover the truth.
I won’t say anything more about the plot as I wouldn’t want to spoil it, but I will add that in my novel Lundy Castle is still occupied by the Thistlewoods, not divided into holiday homes.
Oliver Cromwell’s Head (referenced in The Balliol Conspiracy)
The facts: During the English Civil War, Balliol College in Oxford had its silver taken by the Roundheads and melted down for Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army. After Cromwell’s death, when the monarchy returned, Charles II had Cromwell’s body dug up, put on trial, hanged, drawn, and quartered. His head was placed on a spike in London as a warning against anyone who’d seek to overthrow the monarchy again. Here’s where the facts get bizarre: Oliver Cromwell’s head was stolen, preserved, and changed hands multiple times (at one point it was hidden stuffed up a chimney), before supposedly being buried in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Exactly where is unknown.
My fiction: My as-yet-unpublished novel The Balliol Conspiracy involves the above facts, though I tweak them by pretending Cromwell’s head was buried in Oxford. I won’t say any more about the plot, as the novel is strictly under wraps, suffice to say it’s a treasure hunt adventure for grown-ups, with a spy thriller element and a romantic element. I’ve not penned anything else quite like this, and it took quite some effort to rein in my gothic horror sensibilities whilst writing, to keep the narrative to PG levels. But I was determined that, for once, I’d write a novel that my mother could enjoy.
Uncle Flynn is available from Amazon here (in the UK) and here (in the US).
The Thistlewood Curse is available from Amazon here (in the UK), here (in the US), and here (from Smashwords).
The Balliol Conspiracy will be released at some point in the future. Watch this space.
For the next six weeks, I’m making my gothic mystery novel The Irresistible SummonsFREE to download at Smashwords, to promote my novels in outlets other than Amazon.
Here’s an introduction to whet your appetite.
In a brief prologue, 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 secret teenage romance.
As Naomi continues to investigate, she begins to believe she might have stumbled onto a genuine haunting, one with disturbing links to her past, and possibly her future.
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.
The Irresistible Summons can be downloaded FREE from Smashwords here. It also continues to be available for purchase at Amazon. Enjoy!
With the exception of a couple of short stories, last year I took an extended break from fiction writing after finishing the first draft of a novel tentatively titled The White Nest. This story proved every bit as “personal” as Children of the Folded Valley. In fact, given the level of raw nerve jabbing involved, it’s safe to say I did something of a “Truman Capote”. What I mean by that is Capote was scarred to such a degree after writing his masterpiece In Cold Blood that he never finished another novel.
I am not comparing myself to such a literary giant, nor did I do anything as drastic as attend executions for my art, as he did, but the painful truth is that writing The White Nest affected me in ways I’m still coming to terms with. For some time, I wondered if my “voices” would ever return. I wrote a bit about that experience in this article on Medium. Thankfully I can report that the voices are back.
This year so far, I have written the first novel in a planned trilogy of fantasy stories that exist in the same Universe as my as-yet unpublished dark fairy tale novel The Faerie Gate. However, despite being pleased that I’ve managed to write another novel, I’m not yet convinced the quality is high enough to warrant being shared with the world. I feared the same for The White Nest, but having finally braved another look at the manuscript, I am pleased to report that is not the case.
The White Nest (I’m keeping the real title secret for now) is another gothic mystery, at least in part. It is also a coming-of-age story, a romance, a conspiracy thriller, and obviously it contains some strong horror elements. It deals in themes of complicated sibling relationships, parental fears, and false guilt. Reading it back, I can see why the process of writing it had such an effect on me, due to some of the painful personal experiences on which I am drawing. That said, I think readers will simply enjoy it as a vivid, gripping, page-turning mystery, which was always my primary intention. I think it might contain the best first act I’ve ever written. I can’t say if the ending is up to the same standard, as I’ve yet to reread it, but so far the signs are promising.
In terms of plot, The White Nest represents something of a departure from my previous gothic mysteries, in that the protagonist is male. I’m keeping the specifics under wraps for now, but I can tell you the story contains a full checklist of my favourite gothic tropes, including a sleepy south-west England village, haunted forest, eerie mansion, secret tunnels, dubious secret experimental facilities, occult secret societies, ghosts, demons, curses, mysterious disappearances, childhood memories buried by trauma, rug-pulling twist ending… you name it. You could even call this novel Now That’s What I Call A Simon Dillon Gothic Mystery if you really wanted to, as it is something of a compilation of my preoccupations, genre wise.
Here are some photographs of locations that inspired settings for certain sequences in The White Nest. The novel is predominantly set in Cornwall, but much of the landscape is based on the rugged North Devon coast. However, the first part of the novel is set in Oxford. One key scene takes place in Port Meadow.
Once I finish a second draft of The White Nest, I am moving on to a new gothic mystery, one that’s been gestating in my mind for some time. It is getting to the point where it is an itch I have to scratch, and I’m looking forward to developing it. In the meantime, I may well release a volume of short stories in the future, as I’ve now got quite a nice pile of these, and it would be nice to have them all together in one place. As ever, watch this space.
Call the Number On Your Screen is a new short story by yours truly, available for your reading pleasure in Illumination, a publication on Medium. It concerns a corrupt televangelist who takes extreme measures to find his blackmailer. Satirical of a certain kind of American televangelist, it also draws inspiration from hard boiled noir crime fiction. As such it’s a little outside my usual genre, but writing it was a fun experiment. Besides, the themes – corrupt religious figures, abuse of power – will be familiar from my other works.
Here’s a list of all my short stories currently published, along with a brief description for each, and a link to where they can be read (titles lead to Medium, but Papercut is also available on this blog).
Dystopian Science Fiction/Romance. In a fascistic future London, a widower begins to suspect he has repressed memories when he encounters a mysterious woman.
NOTE: The above links to part one of four. Links to subsequent instalments appear at the end of each part.
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.
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.
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.
Let’s face it: gripping gothic mysteries are best read at this time of year, when leaves are falling and nights are drawing in. As it gets colder in the approach to Christmas, nothing beats snuggling up in front of the fireplace with a mug of tea, and a sinister, spooky thriller.
In the first of a two-part series, I pick two of my published novels that are best read in the run-up to Christmas, beginning with The Birds Began to Sing. It concerns Alice Darnell, a struggling, not-yet published author, who has suffered the usual setbacks faced by wannabe authors, namely rejection from agents and publishers. Yes, I know this already sounds self-indulgent, but bear with me.
Alice is ambitious, but she isn’t an insufferable narcissist. Significant past trauma, including drug addiction, has left her with psychological scars, an occasional tendency to slip into delusion, as well as a peculiar bird phobia. A couple of incidents in the opening act – one involving an apparent stalking on the London underground, and a misunderstanding during a work performance review – underline her potentially fragile psyche.
When Alice finally acquires a literary agent, he enters her into a mysterious writing competition at Blackwood House on Dartmoor. Alice has been chosen, along with other candidates, to write the final act of an unfinished manuscript, penned by the late, great Sasha Hawkins; a bestselling author of popular thrillers, who died at a tragically young age, in a car crash. Blackwood House is the ancestral family home of Sasha Hawkins, and her former publishers have persuaded her family to host the competition.
The winner of the competition will have their ending selected for publication, as well as their own novel. However, a number of peculiar rules must be strictly observed. Competitors have to stay at Blackwood House for two weeks, where they must write the ending cut off from all contact with the outside world. Intrigued and somewhat bemused, Alice agrees to join in, excited at the potential opportunity.
However, once she arrives at Blackwood House, and the competition gets underway, strange things starts to happen. Alice is unsure who to trust, as she is drawn into a labyrinth of deceit, revenge, and perhaps even murder. But the biggest secret of all is more shocking than Alice could have possibly imagined.
The Birds Began to Singdraws inspiration from mystery classics such as Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, to Agatha Christie whodunnits, specifically Sleeping Murder, and also the gothic literature of the Bronte sisters, particularly Jane Eyre. There’s even a bit of Michael Crichton or Dan Brown style conspiracy thriller in the mix, and a dash of Arthur Conan Doyle, most obviously The Hound of the Baskervilles. But The Birds Began to Sing is also a unique and nail-biting thriller in its own right.
Intrigued? Here’s what a few Amazon reviewers had to say:
“I loved this! Absolutely awesome read clever plot and ruddy brilliant twist! If you love a good mystery and a bit of a thriller this is for you!”
“An excellent psychological thriller… kept me turning pages right to the end.”
“A maze of spooky encounters… Full of exciting twists and turns.”
“A memorable lead character, mystery, suspense, eerie settings, a couple of genuine surprises, all sprinkled in with a healthy dose of wit.”
“A terrific read for lovers of suspense and mystery.”
“A great read and I loved the twist. Did not expect it at all.”
I should add that the bulk of the narrative (from act two onward) is set during the run-up to Christmas.
The Birds Began to Sing is available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon here (in the UK) and here (in the US).
Simon Dillon Books 
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