In a lonely village in the Peak District, during the onset of a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm, Constable Ellie Cheetham finds a body. The man, a local ne’er-do-well, appears to have died in a tragic accident: he drank too much and froze to death. But the facts don’t add up: the dead man is clutching a knife in one hand, and there’s evidence he was hiding from someone. Someone who watched him die. Stranger still, an odd mark has been drawn onto a stone beside his body. The next victims are two families on the outskirts of town. As the storm rises and the body count grows, Ellie realises she has a terrifying problem on her hands: someone – or some thing – is killing indiscriminately, attacking in the darkness and using the storm for cover. The killer is circling ever closer to the village. The storm’s getting worse… and the power’s just gone out. A bit of seasonal, wintry horror this week. The Hollows by Daniel Church is a fresh take on old-school creature features.  Officer Ellie Cheetham is a lowly police constable responsible for upholding the law in this rural, isolated community. During the worst snowstorm in years, she finds…

Struggling with money, raising a child alone and fleeing a volatile ex, Jess McMachen accepts a job caring for an elderly patient. Flo Gardner—a disturbed shut-in and invalid. But if Jess can hold this job down, she and her daughter, Izzy, can begin a new life. Flo’s vast home, Nerthus House, may resemble a stately vicarage in an idyllic village, but the labyrinthine interior is a dark, cluttered warren filled with pagan artefacts. And Nerthus House lives in the shadow of a malevolent secret. A sinister enigma determined to reveal itself to Jess and to drive her to the end of her tether. Not only is she stricken by the malign manipulation of the Vicarage’s bleak past, but mercurial Flo is soon casting a baleful influence over young Izzy. What appeared to be a routine job soon becomes a battle for Jess’s sanity and the control of her child. It’s as if an ancient ritual was triggered when Jess crossed the threshold of the vicarage. A rite leading her and Izzy to a terrifying critical mass, where all will be lost or saved. It’s nearly Halloween so it seems appropriate that this week’s review visits the darker side of human…

JUST ANOTHER DEAD-END JOB. DEATH. IT’S A DIRTY BUSINESS. When Diya Burman’s best friend Angie dies, it feels like her own life is falling apart. Wanting a fresh start, she joins Slough & Sons – a family firm that cleans up after the recently deceased. Old love letters. Porcelain dolls. Broken trinkets. Clearing away the remnants of other people’s lives, Diya begins to see things. Horrible things. Things that get harder and harder to write off as merely her grieving imagination. All is not as it seems with the Slough family. Why won’t they speak about their own recent loss? And who is the strange man that keeps turning up at their jobs? If Diya’s not careful, she might just end up getting buried under the family tree. . . Way back in 2020, I read an excellent anthology by Jonathan Sims called 13 Storeys. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Everyone loves a haunted house don’t they? Two years down the line and the author is back with a new novel, Family Business. The sadness that inhabits the main protagonist, Diya, feels palpable. The death of her best friend means she has lost one of the few constants in her life….

Superstitions only survive if people believe in them… Renowned academic Dr Sparling seeks help with his project on a remote Irish village. Historical researchers Ben and Chloe are thrilled to be chosen – until they arrive. The village is isolated and forgotten. There is no record of its history, its stories. There is no friendliness from the locals, only wary looks and whispers. The villagers lock down their homes at sundown. It seems a nameless fear stalks the streets, but nobody will talk – nobody except one little girl. Her words strike dread into the hearts of the newcomers. Three times you see him. Each night he comes closer… That night, Ben and Chloe see a sinister figure watching them. He is the Creeper. He is the nameless fear in the night. Stories keep him alive. And nothing will keep him away… For a reader like me, The Creeper by A.M. Shine is the perfect nightmare fuel. I have a tendency towards night terrors and on more than one occasion I’ve woken in the middle of the night utterly convinced there is someone in the room standing over me*. With that in mind, I am either absolutely the worst or…

Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the island of Ithaca. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom. Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. While he lived, her position was secure. But now, years on, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door. No one man is strong enough to claim Odysseus’ empty throne—not yet. But everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, and Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war. Only through cunning, wit, and her trusted circle of maids, can she maintain the tenuous peace needed for the kingdom to survive. This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before. Beyond Ithaca’s shores, the whims of gods dictate the wars of men. But on the isle, it is the choices of the abandoned women—and their goddesses— that will change the course of the world. Something a little bit different today. This week’s book is…

Please note, The Hastening Storm is the third book in an on-going series. If you haven’t read what has come before, The Wolf Mile and The Blood Isles, then the book-related waffle that follows will contain something akin to minor spoilery-type stuff.   Live by the rules. Die by the rules. Or break them and take your chances in the chaos that follows… The Pantheon Games are the biggest underground event in the world, with millions watching online as modern-day recruits battle to the death with weapons of the ancient world. Tyler Maitland left his life behind to search for his sister, who disappeared after joining the Pantheon’s Edinburgh chapter. But one year on, he’s still no closer to finding her… After the shocking climax of the Grand Battle, Tyler must now find a way to forge a new brotherhood amongst his enemies. There will be new identities, new teammates, a new cause… but the same blood will flow on the streets while those at the top enjoy the show and count the money rolling in. This season will be like no other. Tyler must accept a new mission, one that hasn’t been attempted in twenty years of the Pantheon. His…

Ricky Smart is a nobody, a Miami Beach paparazzo who lives in a cheap apartment and scrapes a living snapping celebs. One day Ricky wakes up, and realises there’s something wrong with his hand. It’s not his hand. In fact, it’s someone else’s hand. How does he know it’s not his? Because it looks different, it feels different and – perhaps the biggest clue– it has a four-letter word tattooed across the knuckles. Then a week later, his other hand changes. A few days after that, Ricky gets a new arm… Ricky is losing his mind as well as his body parts, but he has to eat and pay rent so he manages to get things together enough to pursue his seedy paparazzi career. He’s after candid shots of pop sensation and local girl Scala Jaq, who’s staying in town. He trails Scala, who has a secret of her own, and to his surprise and shock comes across her at a support group for people with an unusual condition, led by an overly enthusiastic guy called Don. Scala and Ricky team up when they begin to suspect Don, who tells them he’s a time-travelling policeman with an interest in Ricky’s…

Please note Priest of Crowns is the fourth book and final book in The War for the Rose Throne series. If you have not read books one, two and three, what follows is likely to contain more than a few spoilers. Consider yourself duly warned! ‘Praise be to Our Lady of Eternal Sorrows, and blessed be the Ascended Martyr.’ Those were the words on lips of the faithful: Blessed be the Ascended Martyr, and woe betide you if you thought otherwise. The word Unbeliever had become a death sentence on the streets in those days. Gangster, soldier, priest. Governor, knight, and above all, Queen’s Man. Once, Tomas Piety looked after his men, body and soul, as best he could. Then those who ran his country decided his dark talents would better serve in the corridors of power. Crushed by the power of the Queen’s Men and with the Skanian menace rising once more on the streets of Ellinburg, Tomas Piety is forced to turn to old friends, old debts and untrustworthy alliances. Meanwhile in the capital city of Dannsburg, Dieter Vogel is beginning to wonder if the horror he has unleashed in the Martyr’s Disciples might be getting out of…

“You are the next step in human evolution.”   At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.   But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways.   The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.   Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.   Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human.   And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if…

A hundred years ago, a man with a secret could travel a few hundred miles and give himself a new name and life story. No one would be any the wiser, as long as he didn’t give anyone a reason to start asking questions. These days, that’s not so easy, with everyone on social media, and CCTV on every street corner. So Daniel Mackmain keeps his head down and keeps himself to himself. But now a girl has been murdered and the Derbyshire police are taking a closer look at a loner who travels from place to place, picking up work as he goes. Worse, Dan realises the murder involves the hidden world he was born into. When no one else can see the truth, who will see justice done? One of my many obsessions is the folklore and mythology of the British Isles. I’ve always been utterly fascinated by all the stories. I grew up reading books like Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock and Watership Down by Richard Adams. On television, I was entranced by The Box of Delights, while musically albums like Songs from the Wood by Jethro Tull were always near the top of my playlist*. Heck,…

THE BUNKER IS DESIGNED TO KEEP THEM ALL SAFE. In the end, very few people made it to the bunker. Now they wait there for the outside world to heal. Wolfe is one of the lucky ones. She’s safe and employed as the bunker’s pharmacist, doling out medicine under the watchful eye of their increasingly erratic and paranoid leader. BUT IS IT THE PLACE OF GREATEST DANGER? But when the leader starts to ask things of Wolfe, favours she can hardly say no to, it seems her luck is running out. Forming an unlikely alliance with the young Doctor Stirling, her troubled assistant Levitt, and Canavan – a tattooed giant of a man who’s purpose in the bunker is a mystery – Wolfe must navigate the powder keg of life underground where one misstep will light the fuse. The walls that keep her safe also have her trapped. How much more is Wolfe willing to give to stay alive? Once again I find myself drawn to the end of the world. The Pharmacist by Rachelle Atalla is an intimate, introspective journey of a woman locked away from the outside world by choice. Wolfe’s character is riveting, there is an inherent…

Everyone is not as they seem in this fantasy novel, replete with war, witchcraft and secrets. Christophor Morden lives by night. His day-brother, Alexsander, knows only the sun. They are two souls in a single body, in a world where identities change with the rising and setting of the sun. Night-brother or day-sister, one never sees the light, the other knows nothing of the night. Early one evening, Christophor is roused by a call to the city prison. A prisoner has torn his eyes out and cannot say why. Yet worse: in the sockets that once held his eyes, teeth are growing. The police suspect the supernatural, so Christophor, a member of the king’s special inspectorate, is charged with finding the witch responsible. Night-by-night, Christophor’s investigation leads him ever further from home, toward a backwards village on the far edge of the kingdom. But the closer he gets to the truth, the more his day-brother’s actions frustrate him. Who is Alexsander protecting? What does he not want Christophor to discover? And all the while, an ancient and apocalyptic ritual creeps closer to completion… It’s the premise that is going to capture your attention initially when it comes to Equinox by…

Please note, The Hunger of the Gods is the second book in an ongoing series. I would strongly advise reading book one, The Shadow of the Gods, before proceeding further as what follows will likely contain minor spoilers. Consider yourself duly warned.  Lik-Rifa, the dragon god of legend, has been freed from her eternal prison. Now she plots a new age of blood and conquest. As Orka continues the hunt for her missing son, the Bloodsworn sweep south in a desperate race to save one of their own – and Varg takes the first steps on the path of vengeance. Elvar has sworn to fulfil her blood oath and rescue a prisoner from the clutches of Lik-Rifa and her dragonborn followers, but first she must persuade the Battle-Grim to follow her. Yet even the might of the Bloodsworn and Battle-Grim cannot stand alone against a dragon god. Their hope lies within the mad writings of a chained god. A book of forbidden magic with the power to raise the wolf god Ulfrir from the dead . . . and bring about a battle that will shake the foundations of the earth.  I’ve been looking forward to this. The Shadow of…