I’ve loved horror books and films since I was a boy, staying up late at the weekend to watch all those Hammer classics. Ghost stories are a favourite and many of the best – except those where the ghosts are pure evil – are all about the mystery. What horror was visited on this spirit to make it return and haunt the living? The process of finding out must be elusive, suggestive, mysterious – and leave you that little bit less certain all is well when you go through the house switching off the lights last thing at night. All these books surely do that.
I can’t have Christmas without a good ghost mystery and for me, Carfax House perfectly fits the bill. When her husband gets caught up at work in London, a lonely wife prepares their new country home for Christmas. But an elusive female figure haunting the building and its fog-strewn grounds reconnect her with a traumatic experience from the past. The contrast between the enforced jollity of Christmas and the strain on the woman’s psyche threatens to wreck her increasingly fragile grip on reality.
From the bestselling author of the bestselling Psychic Surveys and This Haunted World series, comes a Christmas ghost story to chill your bones! A renovation. In the countryside. Just over an hour’s train ride from London. An ideal family home. Sold unseen. At auction. Married couple, Al and Liz Greenaway, love London, but when they discover an impressive country property for sale, in need of some TLC, for the same price as their London flat, they decide to go for it. For them, life is all about reinventing themselves, keeping things fresh, and this house marks an exciting new chapter.…
I love this story of a country house and its family in decline, haunted by the creepy presence of the little stranger. The doctor whose mother once worked as a maid at Hundreds Hall does his best to support the eccentric family as the disturbances threaten to overwhelm them. In doing so, he becomes an increasingly intimate part of the mystery.
After her award-winning trilogy of Victorian novels, Sarah Waters turned to the 1940s and wrote THE NIGHT WATCH, a tender and tragic novel set against the backdrop of wartime Britain. Shortlisted for both the Orange and the Man Booker, it went straight to number one in the bestseller chart. In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable…
Almost too iconic to pick, The Shining sets the standard for ghost mystery stories. Who are those spooky little girls? The woman in the bath of Room 217? The bartender… And what does this snowbound, deserted hotel want from recovering alcoholic Jack and his family? If you like horror and twisted minds, you have to read this book. And for those of you who have seen the stunning Kubrick film, prepare yourself: there are a few significant differences in the novel.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Before Doctor Sleep, there was The Shining, a classic of modern American horror from the undisputed master, Stephen King.
Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote . . . and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around…
Oliver Hardacre is a successful writer living in Whitby who most definitely does not want to return to his family home in Suffolk. When circumstances force his hand, we find ourselves in a ghost mystery that swirls with layers of uncertainty, guaranteed to make you shiver. An eerie, haunting novel with a twist I never saw coming - like all good ghost mysteries!
Memories are like ghosts. They linger in doorways, whisper with the howling wind when lightning strikes. They are the dark phantoms of my youth. My mind buried my memories for good reason, and I spent forty years believing I could escape them.
Until with one phone call, I found myself in my childhood home: Hardacre Priory.
I knew from the first step through the door that it was all over. The forgotten events of 1979 leapt to the surface and screamed their truths. Everything I thought to be true was a lie.…
Ghost stories thrive on limited viewpoints, but does the child at the centre of this novel see more clearly than others? Set against the bleak backdrop of the Scottish Highlands, 10-year-old Lauren wonders about the mysterious woman who keeps appearing to her and her harrowed dad. Especially as it is only Lauren who ever seems to remember her. Sad, creepy, and thoroughly recommended.
WINNER of the McIlvanney Prize 2020 Shortlisted for Bloody Scotland's Scottish Crime Debut of the Year 2020 Longlisted for the Highland Book Prize 2020
'Hugely atmospheric, exquisitely written and utterly gripping' LUCY FOLEY, author of The Hunting Party 'It's both eerie and thrilling at once, and had me under its spell until the end' SOPHIE MACKINTOSH, author of Blue Ticket and The Water Cure ______________
They are driving home from the search party when they see her. The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men.
Lauren and her father Niall live alone in the Highlands,…
Alice Deaton can’t believe her luck when she lands a new post at a medieval English manor house. Mired in debt, the elderly owners have transferred their beloved Bramley to a heritage trust. Alice must prepare it for opening to the public in the spring, with the former owners relegated to a private wing. But when the ghosts start appearing - the woman with the wounded hand and the boy in the burgundy hood - Alice realises why her predecessor might have left the isolated house so soon.
As she peels back the layers of the mystery, the secrets Alice uncovers haunting Bramley’s heart will be dark - darker than she could ever have imagined...
I have been writing for many years, and my main preference is political thrillers with criminal overtones. I first became interested in politics when I worked at several political conferences in the 60’s and 70’s. I have been involved in several criminal cases, including my own, and within my family, I have a nephew in the police force. For many years I have had the opportunity to mix with the upper tiers of society as well as the criminal classes and this has given me great insight into creating my characters and plots.
Pete West, a political columnist, travels to Prague to find a missing diplomat, later found murdered. He attempts to discover more about a cryptic note received from the diplomat and is immediately entangled in the secret Bilderberg Club’s strategy to form a world federation.
Pete meets a Czechian agent who wants asylum. She has a murdered EU Commissioner’s diary containing clues to the civil unrest planned by the club, encrypted in algebraic chess notations. West seeks answers and links up with retired MI6 officer Tosh. While escaping would-be captors, they decode enough chess moves to reveal the anarchy of the…
Pete West, a political columnist, travels to Prague to find a missing diplomat, later found murdered. He attempts to discover more about a cryptic note received from the diplomat and is immediately entangled in the secret Bilderberg Club’s strategy to form a world federation.
Pete meets a Czechian agent who wants asylum. She has a murdered EU Commissioner’s diary containing clues to the civil unrest planned by the club, encrypted in algebraic chess notations. West seeks answers and links up with retired MI6 officer Tosh. While escaping would-be captors, they decode enough chess moves to reveal the anarchy of the…
