The Restless Bones - a bit of nostalgia

Back in the day, when I was at Junior school, we had a thing called The Bookworm Club.  It must have been a nationwide organisation (I vaguely remember a catalogue, though I can’t find any info about it on the Net) but what happened at Rothwell Juniors was that a stall was set up in the hall and you went in and bought any books that took your fancy (there was also something with collecting vouchers and saving them on a card).  I enjoyed it because it was aimed towards me (bookshops in those days weren’t, particularly, kid friendly), I could pick what I wanted and they had some great titles to choose from.

One of my first purchases was The Restless Bones, edited by the great Peter Haining.

cover scan of my copy

The Restless Bones & Other True Mysteries, edited by Peter Haining, is a slim Armada paperback that has no copyright/publishers information in it at all, though I believe it was published in 1978.  The cover was painted by Alun Hood, whilst the interior illustrations were the work of Ellis Nadler.

(left - "The Restless Bones" are discovered - right - "The Thing From Outer Space")

Peter Haining (1940-2007) was a journalist, author and anthologist from Suffolk, who was Editorial Director at New English Library before becoming a full-time writer in the early 70s.  He edited a large number of anthologies, predominantly of horror and fantasy short stories and wrote non-fiction books on a variety of topics, sometimes using the pen names ‘Ric Alexander’ and ‘Richard Peyton’ for crime anthologies.  He won the British Fantasy Society Karl Edward Wagner Award in 2001.

The Restless Bones contains ten stories:
The Restless Bones, The Winged Monster of the Desert, The Terror Of The Dragon, The Mystery of the Loup-Garou, Old Roger’s Vengeance, The Witch’s Familiars, The Call of Darke’s Drum, The Trail of the Devil’s Fooprints, The Thing From Outer Space and The Voice In The Graveyward.  “I have drawn on the large file of material I have collected over the years about events and experiences which are fantastic - but factual” is Haining’s comment on their origins, as he writes in his introduction.

The killer story for me was “The Voice in the Graveyard”, wherein teenaged Richard, in 1964 Wisconsin, accepts a challenge to spend the night in a graveyard, all on his own.  As I write this - a grown man far removed from the nine-year-old me reading it over the 1978 summer holidays, I can still remember the frisson of fear that ran through me when Richard hears a whispering voice plead, “…help us…”

Well presented, with a good range of mysteries, this kept my attention well and steered me further into the path of horror and the supernatural (the devil's footprints being backed up by Arthur C. Clarke, of course).

I'm also proud to say that this book still stands on my bookshelf - it looks a little beaten up around the edges, but it's holdings its own.

The Tooth Fairy, by Graham Joyce (a review)

In a new edition of the occasional series, I want to tell you about a book I've just read and loved, which I think adds to the horror genre and that I think you'll enjoy if you're a fan. In this case, the book first came out in 1996 and was written by the late and much-missed Graham Joyce, so the chances are you might have already heard of it. I'd been putting off reading it for a long, long time and when I finally picked it up I was pleased to find it inscribed to me and I realised I bought it from him at a Terror Scribes gathering in Leicester in 2001 (which I wrote about here).

When seven-year-old Sam Southall loses a tooth, he’s visited by the Tooth Fairy, a demonic being (sometimes male, sometimes female) that apparently only he can see, but whose malignant influence spills over onto his family and friends. The Tooth Fairy hangs around as Sam grows up, teaching him to make mischief at school and influencing his actions. One day she insists Sam’s friend Terry sleeps over and that same night, Terry's father shoots his wife, his other children, and himself…

I am a huge Graham Joyce fan and I’d been holding this back (the book was published in 1996) because  - well, there aren't a lot of his I have yet to read - but I’m so glad I did. Filled with Joyce’s wonderous prose, mastery of character and dialogue and a brilliant evocation of a seventies childhood (the timespan is never properly specified), this was just glorious. The lives of Sam, Terry and Clive are imbued with a sense of love and melancholy and the introduction of Alice to the group works brilliantly - she’s just as vivid a character as them, even if her motives aren’t always clear. And while the boys navigate friendships, parents and the rigours of becoming teenagers, the Tooth Fairy is always there, an ever-present reminder that things don’t always go right, however much you try to make them. There are scenes of horror - Terry’s family, Tooley the scout, poor Linda in London - and they’re shocking but the book, ultimately, is about friendship and love and I found it by turns funny and sad and eminently readable. I cannot recommend this highly enough and I envy those who have yet to discover its sense of wonder.

* * *

Graham Joyce was born the mining village of Kerseley, near Coventry, on 22nd October 1954, where he grew up.  He obtained his bachelor’s degree in education at Bishop Lonsdale college, an MA in English and American Literature at the University of Leicester and in 2004 was awarded a PhD in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University.

In 1988, he quit his job and went to live on the Greek island of Lesbos, to concentrate on writing.  His first novel, Dreamside, funded travel to the Middle East and he went on to write fourteen novels, five young adult novels, and an autobiographical book about his experiences as goalie for the England Writers' football team (which, by the way, is excellent).  He also wrote numerous short stories.

Over his career, he won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel five times, the World Fantasy Award , the French Grand Prix De L'Imaginaire twice and the prestigious O Henry award for his short story An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen. In 2008 he was awarded the Honorary degree of Master of Letters by the University of Derby.

He continued to write and teach creative writing at Nottingham Trent University until his death on 9th September 2014.

Biography from the Graham Joyce website

I was lucky to meet him on several occasions and we got to know each other well enough we'd chat and share a laugh whenever we were in the same place (usually at FantasyCon).  I saw him at WFC (he was heading downstairs, I was heading up, he said "Hello mate!" and changed direction so we could walk and talk for a while) in Brighton and got to tell him how much his novel The Year Of The Ladybird meant to me and he seemed genuinely moved when I told him it made me cry.  However, when I asked him if he was going to write a short story, detailing the love affair after the novels end, he told me to bugger off!  

I miss his presence and his writing.

Phoenix, by Steve Byrne - Redux Reviews 1

Welcome to the start of a new thread where I'll revisit reviews of books by friends and writers I admire, to highlight the works for readers who might have missed them the first time they appeared.

We'll begin with Phoenix, a novel by Steve Byrne I originally reviewed in 2013.

Vietnam 1967.

Something monstrous has risen from the ashes of war…

When the US marines enter the hidden village of Mau Giang, they unleash an ancient darkness from within its temple walls. A fearful secret kept for generations by the native Montagnard tribespeople. 

Abraham Curtis travels to Vietnam to visit his sister Jenny, an aid worker in Saigon. Together they join a humanitarian convoy into the Central Highlands, where Jenny is to adopt a child orphaned by the conflict.

But the influence of the breached temple is spreading its contagion across the combat zones of Vietnam like gangrene through flesh, and soon it will destroy Bram’s world. Pursued by a bloodthirsty cult, he must search for his missing sister through the war-torn wastelands, his only companions deserters, rebel soldiers and a woman who may not be quite human.

Across the world, protestors line the streets. The battle lines are drawn - war and peace, hawk or dove. Is this the apocalyptic coming of the Man of Blood, prophesised by Nostradamus, or a delusion brought about by Post-traumatic Stress? On panic filled streets, during the Fall of Saigon, Bram will find his answer.

Forget truth. Forget innocence. There are only casualties.

Bram Curtis is in Saigon in 1967, to visit his sister Jenny who works in an orphanage.  He’s left England, disillusioned and wants to try and find himself in this new country - listen to Hendrix, smoke pot and see what life has to offer.  When he discovers Jenny is planning to adopt a young girl called Lai, he gets roped into the aid convoy to go and reach her, headed by the urbane General Hoan.  After things take a decided turn for the worse (like Hoan himself) and Bram becomes embroiled in the Tet Offensive, the narrative jumps to May 1970 as he searches for his now-missing sister.  His pursuit leads him further in-country and into the orbit of the mysterious - and potentially dangerous - Qui, taking us up to 1975 (there’s a much later coda too), when he must finally confront the Man Of Blood, a supernatural entity that is teased throughout the novel.  

Since my entire knowledge of Vietnam is limited to memories of lessons at school and movies from the 80s and 90s, this isn’t the kind of novel that I would have picked up generally but I’m glad I did in this case.  Starting with a bang and never really letting go of the pace - and it’s a long novel - Byrne relays the story of Bram, a drifter who discovers a cause that consumes his life, with real style.  Vietnam is almost a character in herself, with Saigon painted in rich and detailed depth, from the heat and humidity, the texture of skin and sweat and the hundreds of things that are happening in the streets at once, creating a riot of tactile, broiling humanity.  Later, moving in-country, you get a real sense of both the claustrophobia and humidity of the jungle, of the architecture of the churches and the battered and bruised earth, making it occasionally hard to read it’s so well done.  

The book is filled with vivid characters - and this extends to the most minor of roles, not just Bram, Jen, Hoan or Qui - and yet none of them are guaranteed safe passage to the end of the novel, with some of the deaths (as quick and dirty as you’d expect in a war situation) being quite shocking.  Combine this with a dispassionate eye towards the brutality of war - what is seen and what is perpetrated - and you have a narrative that demands attention.  The supernatural elements are used sparingly but are well written and blended easily into the narrative, so you’re as unaware as the character if you’ve witnessed them or not.  Byrne doesn’t skimp on the set pieces either and there are plenty of them, all superbly constructed and choreographed, never overlong and intense enough to make you feel part of them.  The same is true of the last act, a gruelling journey Bram must take into his own heart of darkness that you can’t tear your eyes from, even down to the gut-punch final few lines.

Steve has clearly done his research in all areas - the locations, the equipment, the theatres of war, the culture and the language - and it shines through perfectly, with nothing coming across as heavy handed or expositional.  Everything the reader learns  - about Vietnam or the horrors - comes through the character, with no obvious info-dumps.

This is a wonderfully constructed novel, tightly edited and with a cracking pace and it deserves a big readership.  Highly recommended.

The book can be found on Amazon here as a paperback and here as an ebook whilst Steve Byrne's website can be found here.

Steve Harris (the man behind Mr Byrne) & I go back a long way, first corresponding in the late 90s when he produced a newsheet called The Inner Circle.  I didn't actually meet him for several years, finally plucking up the courage at one FantasyCon to introduce myself with "are you the Steve Harris who did The Inner Circle?”

Since then we've developed a great friendship, which often involves us talking for hours at Cons about all things horror.  At FantasyCon 2012 (in Brighton, which I wrote about here), he told me about Phoenix, which he was publishing through his own imprint PunkLit and I jumped at the chance to read it.

Steve & I are co-founding members of The Crusty Exterior

The first Crusty Exterior gathering - London, April 2015
from left to right - James Everington, Phil Sloman, Steve and me

Visions Of Ruin is out now!

I'm pleased to announce that my horror novella, Visions Of Ruin, was published on March 30th by NewCon Press.

A week in a seedy caravan at 'The Good Times Holiday Park' is not exactly the holiday sixteen-year-old Sam has been dreaming of, but he knows his mum is struggling and doing the best she can. At least he meets someone his own age to hang out with – Polly – but neither of them is prepared for the strangeness that ensues. 

Beautifully paced and full of deft touches that bring the 1980s setting to life, Visions of Ruin is set during a rainy weekend at a caravan park on the edge of rundown seaside town. 

Me, on a Surrey bike, just outside Holimarine Corton, summer 1986.
Picture by Nick Duncan, who shared a lot of seaside adventures with me back then.

Having spent the last four years writing three mainstream thriller novels (the first two of which, DON'T GO BACK and

ONLY WATCHING YOU, have now been published by The Book Folks), I've only dipped a toe back into horror when people have asked for short stories.  But the genre is in my blood and when Ian Whates asked if I'd like to write a novella for him, I jumped at the chance - I like and respect him a lot and I'm proud to be associated with NewCon Press.

I started writing this just after I finished DON'T GO BACK and the idea took a little while to come together until I realised I could combine two of my apparent obsessions - teenagers in the 80s and a rundown east coast British seaside resort. Once that had clicked in my head I was off and running and the writing process itself (as well as drawing several maps of the caravan park central to the story) was hugely enjoyable and brought back a lot of good memories of holidays in the 80s.

The book is available as ebook and paperback editions and there's also a 60 copy Limited Edition  hardback which I thoroughly enjoyed signing the book plates for.

pictures by Dude

Being published by two companies has meant a bit of a "it's like buses" situation at the moment with my writing but I was really happy to see the early response to this and was thrilled when it hit Number 1 in the Hot New Releases (Teen & YA Ghost Stories) Amazon chart.

Amazon - 31/3/22

When he announced it in the NewCon Press newsletter, Ian wrote: "I am delighted to welcome Mark West back to NewCon Press' publishing schedule. Mark's short fiction has appeared in several of our anthologies over the years, including Ten Tall Tales and Hauntings, but this time he contributes a longer piece, Visions of Ruin, which will be the 9th entry in our NP Novella series. I rate this as Mark's most accomplished work to date, and was bowled over by it on first reading."

“A taut ghost story that transported me back to the 80s, with plenty to intrigue and unsettle along the way. A pleasure to read, with a terrifically neat ending.” 

– Alison Littlewood

Visions Of Ruin can be ordered directly from the NewCon Press website here.

£3.99 (ebook)

£9.99 (Paperback)

£19.99 (Signed Hardback, LTD ED)

The book is also available on Amazon at this Universal Link

Thanks to Ian Whates for both asking for and then enjoying the story enough to want to publish it, Nick Duncan for sharing all those adventures with me on the east coast in the 80s, Teika Marija Smits who helped push me to start, Alison Littlewood for her kind words and, as always, David Roberts & Pippa for the Friday Night Walks and the mammoth plotting sessions. 

Visions Of Ruin, from NewCon Press

I am pleased to announce my forthcoming horror novella, Visions Of Ruin, is now available for pre-order at the NewCon Press website. It will be published on March 30th 2022.

A week in a seedy caravan at 'The Good Times Holiday Park' is not exactly the holiday sixteen-year-old Sam has been dreaming of, but he knows his mum is struggling and doing the best she can. At least he meets someone his own age to hang out with – Polly – but neither of them is prepared for the strangeness that ensues. 

Beautifully paced and full of deft touches that bring the 1980s setting to life, Visions of Ruin is set during a rainy weekend at a caravan park on the edge of rundown seaside town. 

I wrote the novella last year, after finishing Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine (coming very soon from The Books Folks, as I wrote about here) and I'm really proud of it. Combining two of my apparent obsessions - the 80s and rundown British east coast seaside resorts - this mixes quiet supernatural horror (which, I hope, is chilling) along with hints of a teenage romance.

“A taut ghost story that transported me back to the 80s, with plenty to intrigue and unsettle along the way. A pleasure to read, with a terrifically neat ending.” 

– Alison Littlewood

Visions Of Ruin is available in paperback and Limited Edition signed hardback and can be ordered directly from the NewCon Press website.

£9.99 (Paperback)

£19.99 (Signed Hardback, LTD ED)

Click here for pre-order details.

Visions Of Ruin is also available as one quarter of the NewCon Novella Bundle 3, along with stories by Stephen Deas, Stewart Hotston and Ida Keogh. More details here.

Thanks to Ian Whates for both asking for and then enjoying the story enough to want to publish it, Nick Duncan for sharing all those adventures with me on the east coast in the 80s, Teika Marija Smits who helped push me to start and, as always, David Roberts for the Friday Night Walks and the mammoth plotting sessions. 

Valley Of Lights, by Stephen Gallagher (a review)

In a new edition of the occasional series, I want to tell you about a book I've just read and loved, which I think adds to the horror genre and that I think you'll enjoy if you're a fan.  In this case, however, it's a book that first came out in 1987 (yikes, 35 years ago!), so chances are you might have already heard of it.  I discovered it, quite by accident, in the fantastic LOROS bookshop on Queens Road in Leicester, when I was in town a couple of years back (for my 50th) with The Crusty Exterior (as I wrote about here).  Last year, my friend Mark Morris posted about the novel on Facebook and I decided to give it a try and I'm really pleased I did.

cover scan of my copy, the 1988 NEL 2nd impression

Imagine the heartbeat of a murderer - and that it's someone you know.  You kill him.

But he returns in another body.

And when that body lies cold in the morgue...

...he's still out there somewhere.

No matter what you do, he comes back again and again.

Because he will never die - and he doesn't have a name.

Imagine - and shudder.

In Phoenix, the brain-dead are rising from their hospital beds and when local children are found, brutally murdered, Sergeant Alex Volchak of the Phoenix Police makes the connection but it’s so fantastic, nobody in the department will listen to him.

First published in 1987, this is a winning combination of crime and horror, perhaps the perfect companion piece to the equally assured Falling Angel.  Alex Volchak is a great protagonist, world weary, lonely and bereaved, keen to see justice done but happy to bend the rules when it suits the common good and he’s blessed with an amusingly deadpan film noir style voice.  His tentative relationship with Loretta, his neighbour in the trailer park where they live, is beautifully observed but rather than her be the stereotypical “single mum whose child needs a father figure”, she’s gutsy, independent and amusing, a force of nature who drives some of the plot later on and whose child, Georgie, sets off the last act.  The villain is a supernatural entity and here is the only place time hasn’t been kind to the novel - back in the late 80s, this may have been a more unique angle but, like the antagonist in Falling Angel, it’s been ripped off so many times it does perhaps lose some of its force for people who weren’t there to witness it the first time around.  Having said that, Gallagher has a lot of fun with the malevolent being and some of his ‘disguises’ (it’s an old novel, yes, but I don’t want to spoil it completely) are cleverly utilised.  Once Alex makes the connection between the killings and the brain-dead bodies they keep finding around the city, he tries to explain it to his bosses - who, obviously, don’t believe him - and then it’s down to him to try and stop the supernatural killer.  There’s a beautiful simplicity and logic to this, as the two characters come together, one a contemporary cop who’s struggling to make sense of everything, the other an ageless monster who normally manages to move amongst the living without drawing too much attention to himself.  

Gallagher uses Phoenix well, a dusty desert town with plenty of dark alleys and dodgy motels and sets a lot of his horror in bright sunlight, adding an almost banal atmosphere to the darker happenings, which only serves to make them even more powerful.  

With a strong supporting cast, a great pace and voice, this is well worth a read and I would highly recommend it.

***

Valley Of Lights might not the best known of Gallagher’s work these days (people are more likely to know the likes of Oktober and Chimera, as well as his numerous screenplay credits) but it was the first to bring attention to his name.  At the time he wrote it, he was “in the really low point of [his] career”, as he’d just shelved the novels The Boat House and Oktober “because nobody wanted to touch [them]”.  Happily, once Valley Of Lights sold, Oktober sold afterwards and The Boat House has also appeared.

There were plans for Valley Of Lights to be made into a film, as he told Paul Tomlinson in an interview that first appeared in the fanzine Other Times.  When Gallagher wrote the novel, he had an ongoing relationship with a director and they were looking for a film to make together.  He handed over some pages of the novel and the director showed them around in the USA and got some interest.  A producer took out an option and Gallagher wrote a screenplay but they couldn’t generate enough interest (“now the truth of this situation is that everybody in Hollywood, and everybody in the film business, is looking for reasons to turn things down. Because turning something down is the safest bet.”).  By the time of his tenth re-write of the script, he realised “rewriting on the basis of rejection was wearing the script down, just destroying it.  It wasn’t my Valley of Lights story any more.”  After two years, when asked for another re-write, he’d finally had enough and “I honestly can’t repeat what I gave as my answer.”

When the rights went to a British company called Zenith in 1990, they put together a new version of the script which Gallagher liked a lot “because it was my story again” - everything he’d had to include in re-writes to try and get a sale had been taken out.  The interview is undated but as Zenith ceased trading in 2006, I have to assume we’ll never get to see the film of this excellent novel.

Stephen Gallagher, born on 13th October 1954, is a novelist, screenwriter and director specialising in contemporary suspense (according to his website).  I had the great fortune to meet him briefly, after he spoke on a panel about screenwriting at Peterborough FantasyCon and he came across as a genuinely lovely man.

Visions Of Ruin, a horror novella

After it was revealed in the latest NewCon Press newsletter, I'm proud to announce that they will be publishing my horror novella, Visions Of Ruin, early in 2022.

Me, on a Surrey bike, just outside Holimarine Corton, summer 1986

Having spent the last four years writing three mainstream thriller novels (which are now going to be published by The Book Folks, as I wrote about here), I've only dipped a toe back into horror when people have asked for short stories.  But the genre is in my blood and when Ian Whates asked if I'd like to write a novella for him, I jumped at the chance - I like and respect him a lot and I'm proud to be associated with NewCon Press.

Ian writes in the newsletter:

"I am delighted to welcome Mark West back to NewCon Press' publishing schedule. Mark's short fiction has appeared in several of our anthologies over the years, including Ten Tall Tales and Hauntings, but this time he contributes a longer piece, Visions of Ruin, which will be the 8th entry in our NP Novella series. I rate this as Mark's most accomplished work to date, and was bowled over by it on first reading."

I began work on the novella whilst my latest thriller - Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine - was out on submission and it was a real delight to go back to horror, working in the novella format which I think suits the genre so well.  The idea took a little while to come together but once I realised it was set in the 80s, featuring teenagers in a rainy seaside town, I was off and running, the writing process itself (which involved me drawing several maps of the caravan park central to the story) being hugely enjoyable.

Ian, from the newsletter:

"A week in a caravan at 'The Good Times Holiday Park' at the edge of a rundown seaside town is not exactly the holiday sixteen-year-old Sam has been dreaming of, but he knows his mum is struggling and doing the best she can. At least he meets someone his own age to hang out with – Polly – but neither of them are prepared for the strangeness that ensues. Full of deft touches that bring the 1980s setting to life and populated with a cast of fully rounded characters that the reader can immediately relate to, Visions of Ruin will be released in early 2022."

I will post more details when I'm able, but I have to say, I'm looking forward to seeing Sam and Polly ride their Surrey bike out into the world.

Find out more about NewCon Press here.

Thanks to Ian for both asking for and then enjoying the story enough to want to publish it, Nick Duncan for taking the picture all those years ago and for our adventures on the east coast in the 80s, Teika Marija Smits who helped push me to start and, as always, David Roberts for the Friday Night Walks and the mammoth plotting sessions.

Skin For Skin, by Terry Grimwood - review & guest essay

In a new edition of the occasional series, I want to tell you about a book I've read and loved, which I think adds to the horror genre and that I think you'll enjoy if you're a fan.  And as a bonus, Terry has contributed an essay explaining where the story came from.

"And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." Job 2:4

Troublesome priest Eve Clements is exiled from her North London parish to remote St Jude's, miles from the nearest village.

Carrying childhood demons with her, broken relationships and addiction, she becomes an unwilling pawn in a supernatural battle that keeps her confined within the parish grounds, with a congregation that is not what it seems.

Eve must find her purpose if she is to survive, as terrifying apparitions and her own emotional fragility drive her towards breaking point. 

My review of "Skin For Skin", based on the one that originally appeared in Parsec magazine, issue 1:

When troubled - and troublesome - priest Eve Clements is exiled from her North London parish, she accepts an offer to minister at St Judes, a small church in deepest Suffolk.  Bearing the load of childhood demons and the trauma of a recently ended relationship, she quickly discovers all is not as it seems. St Judes, it quickly transpires, is a focal point of supernatural activity and Eve becomes an unwilling pawn in the centre of an epic battle between good and evil. In order to survive, she must find purpose as terrifying apparitions push her already fragile emotional stability to breaking point.

The novella mostly takes place in and around St Jude’s and Grimwood makes excellent use of the location, situated as it is two miles from the nearest village of Weddon “because of the Black Death”. The narrow roads, ploughed fields, dense hedgerows and hidden copse’s both expand the scope and draw in the claustrophobia, isolating Eve more and more from the reality she’s struggling to deal with. The weather also plays a part, storms locking her in further and reducing visibility until the reader can almost feel the rain striking their skin. The church of St Jude itself is all odd angles and weird stained glass and when we later find out what happened to it in the 18th Century, it’s dislocation makes all the more sense.

Eve’s character is well defined and drawn and opening the novella with a harrowing drugs bust, told entirely from her seven-year-old point of view is a masterstroke, the reader having to fill in the blanks as “The Shouting People” invade her squalid home. It also sets up the course of her life, missing her junkie mother and struggling with New Mum & Dad before entering priesthood, a path we don’t see but encounter when things have already started to go badly wrong. Dedicated to her faith and her flock in the run-down North London parish of St Martin’s, Eve is a thorn in the side of the establishment and when she gets involved with a local mother whose son has died because of drug dealing, it brings her into direct conflict with her bishop. Her growing relationship with local would-be councillor Ruth doesn’t help either. Although we meet the new flock - to say more would give the game away - we only really engage with Angela, the deacon who invited Eve to move and her duplicitous character works well, throwing the reader and Eve off alike, before revealing her true colours in a masterful twist that properly took me by surprise.

Grimwood does a good job, updating and paraphrasing the Job story and although much is made of the religious struggle - both internal and what is actually happening within St Jude’s - this is much more about human relationships and loneliness, especially how people cope with it. It’s never treated sentimentally and never seems manipulative, but being alone and trying to deal with it drives almost all of the characters, from the orphan Eve who has burned every bridge to Ruth, who suffer even when surrounded by supposedly close friends and family. And for those that don’t know (I had to look it up), “skin for skin” comes from Satan doing physical harm to Job, to see if Job will stay faithful to God.

My only gripe is that I didn’t get a real sense of where Eve found her faith that’s strong enough to force her to do things that will, often, only create more agony for her but part of that might be my reading of it (as a long-standing Agnostic).

Told with a decent pace, the twin storylines interweave well and dispense information slowly, giving the reader time to absorb different steps and how they interlink and this is all the better for it. Solidly written, with some wonderful turns of phrase and a keen sense of location and atmosphere, this is a very good read from a writer who gets better with every piece of work. I would very much recommend it.

* * *

Guest blog essay by Terry Grimwood

The Strange Tale of Job, Revisited

So, what’s the story behind my novella Skin For Skin? Is it the product of a fevered imagination? Yes. Are its roots buried deep into my out-in-the-sticks upbringing? Absolutely. Does it owe anything to Hope-Hodgson’s House on the Borderland? You bet it does. And The Book of Job? Most certainly, although not until the story was underway and I began to understand what I was trying to write.

Much of my fiction has a religious undercurrent. My plays, Tattletale Mary, Jar of Flies and The Bayonet all have ministers as key characters. Soul Masque is a somewhat brutal look at the war between God and the Devil. Deadside Revolution features a fallen angel and a conflict in Hell, and my novella, Joe, explores the agony of trying to reconcile sexuality with religious belief. 

I come from a long line of Baptists, so religion, by which I mean Western Christianity, has played some part in my life for as long as I can remember. When I was a child, I was a regular at an Anglican Sunday School and was even educated at a Church of England-funded primary school. 

At the age of 10 or 11, however, I voluntarily transferred my spiritual obligations to one-service-a-week at the Baptist Chapel my parents attended, because continued Sunday School membership meant joining the church choir. There was no way I was going to wear a dress, frilly collar, and sing in a girl’s voice (no disrespect to girls’ voices, they are beautiful, but I think you know where I’m coming from). Such was my need to escape, I was prepared to endure interminable, ancient hymns, ground out on an equally prehistoric harmonium and hour-long sermons delivered by a regular cycle of thee-and-thou preachers who had stepped straight out of the Edwardian era. I love those old hymns nowadays, by the way. There’s power in their language.

So, the idea of God, Jesus, the Bible, prophets, apostles and all the rest were inculcated into my system from my first awareness. Predictably, I kicked against it when a teenager, embraced it with great fervour in my early twenties, then watched my faith slip like sand from my tightly clenched fist as I entered my thirties.

I still believe, but can no longer subscribe to the organised structures of the faith I once cherished. They are riddled with too many tightly-tangled philosophical conundrums that I cannot simply shove aside. Yet the wonder of it remains. Think about it. A being so vast, ancient and powerful it could create and sustain a universe. The enigmatic references in the early chapters of The Bible to the “Sons of God” who came down to Earth to take human women to wife. Enigmatic characters such as Enoch who simply “walked with God and was not” and yet, looms large over ancient Biblical history. Nimrod the Hunter, who or what was he? A catastrophic global flood, the sun travelling backwards in the sky. Plagues. A sea being ripped part into two towering walls of water to allow safe passage for an entire nation. 

And Job…

Ah, yes, the strange and terrible story of Job.

A rich, devout man, he seems to have caught the attention of Satan, who comes before God to issue a challenge. Take everything from Job, leave him ruined and broken, and he will “curse thee to thy face”. Astonishingly, God gives Satan permission to rip Job’s life apart, which he does with great enthusiasm. Job’s entire family and all his livestock are killed, his home demolished and his crops destroyed. Job, himself, is afflicted with sores and left to rot. It is an act of immense cruelty, a life trampled into the dust simply to settle a dispute.

History or parable, the story of Job portrays God as more concerned with scoring a point than caring about one of His creations. Yes, ultimately Job was rewarded for his steadfastness, but why did the poor guy and his family have to suffer all this in the first place? 

Like most of my extended fiction, Skin For Skin evolved from a completely different idea, then found a life of its own. It always feels to me as if stories already exist and it is the writer’s task to uncover them. If that is the case, then this one was buried deep. I found myself being drawn deeper into the heart and soul of the main protagonist, Eve, and realised that she is, in many ways, the personification of my own bruised spirituality. 

Unlike me, she is a courageous, difficult and principled person who was born into terrible poverty and neglect. The darkness of her early childhood is the engine for her faith, and passion (if not obsession) for helping those in trouble. Crushed by the enormity of the burden, her own sense of right and wrong and then by the religious establishment who see her as a troublesome priest determined to disrupt the status quo, she is exiled to a remote church, located in a storm-ravaged, otherworldly landscape - the same lonely East Anglian landscapes I walked as a child.

Like Job, Eve’s life is shattered through no fault of her own. She chooses what she sees as the Right Path and ends up broken and cast out. Then, once in exile, she discovers that she is once more to be a used as a pawn in The Game.

I think that the root of my religion-themed writing is anger at the idea that the complex, wondrous entities God has created, beings capable of beautiful art, mind-bending technology and acts of immense compassion, are simply cannon fodder in the war between “good” and “evil” and damned to Hell if they don’t subscribe to this or that point of doctrine. I don’t believe that to be the case. Any God big and powerful enough to create an infinite universe can fight His own battles. We, as the end of Skin For Skin declares, are here for each other.

* * *

Terry Grimwood is a writer, electrician, college lecturer, actor, amateur theatre director and musician, who, in what little spare time he has, has published a number of novels and novellas.  

His short fiction has appeared in many anthologies and magazines and has been collected in two volumes, The Exaggerated Man and There Is A Way To Live Forever. 

He directed the first performances of his own plays, The Bayonet, Tattletale Mary and Tales From The Nightside, the scripts for which are available from theEXAGGERATEDpress and in addition to fiction, has co-written a number of engineering and electrical installation text books. 

He likes to misquote the legendary Football manager Bill Shankley by claiming that writing is not about life and death...it is much more important than that.

Terry can be found online at theEXAGGERATEDpress website and on Facebook.

Dark Missives, a Q&A with Dan Howarth

With the publication of his debut collection, Dark Missives, I decided to ask Dan Howarth some questions...

DARK MISSIVES is the debut collection from author Dan Howarth, bringing together 11 stories that encompass the full range of horror.

A holiday camp employee finds himself in the middle of a murder spree. A band’s biggest fan discovers just how far he will go for new music. A detective investigating a series of murders gets pulled into the seedy underbelly of the city. A delivery driver gives in to temptation and opens a suspicious package. The owner of a gallery is determined to leave his own legacy on the art world.

Let DARK MISSIVES take you on a tour of the roads less travelled in Northern England to explore what truly lies in the shadows.

Dan Howarth is a writer from the North Of England (Manchester born but now living on Merseyside).  Co-editor of several anthologies with James Everington, I first got to know him when my story appeared in The Hyde Hotel (2016) and since then, we’ve established a little mutual support group, spurring one another on with our novel writing.

Although his work has appeared in many publications, Dark Missives is his first full-length release and collects eleven short stories.  Away from writing, he enjoys craft beer, German football and BBQ food, which seems a winning combination.

After he kindly interviewed me over the release of my novella The Exercise (you can read the interview at his site here), I jumped at the chance to ask him some questions and this is what happened.

MW:  What can you tell me about your debut collection, Dark Missives?

DH:   Dark Missives collects eleven stories from my back catalogue for the first time and is my first full length book. 

There are four originals and seven stories published or produced elsewhere. I’ve been lucky enough to have my stories produced as podcast episodes at The Other Stories podcast numerous times, so whilst these stories are hitting print for the first time, they have previously made their way to readers/listeners. 
The stories that are original to the collection are generally a bit longer and a bit weirder. Lots of short story markets ask for stories under 5k words. I’ve got a few stories in here that I’m really pleased with, they just never fit a market, word count wise. 

MW:   What made you decide to go the self-published route? 

DH:   I’ve spent the last few years largely writing novels and trying to get an agent. I’ve come pretty close a couple of times but still haven’t cracked it. For a large part of the submissions process (as you’ll know, Mark) you can feel like an outsider looking in. 

But that feeling of being an outsider doesn’t have to be negative. It’s something I’ve channelled. There’s absolutely no reason now for creatives of any kind to let their work die on their hard drives anymore. We’ve all got the skills and the means to get out there. As long as the quality of the output is high, we shouldn’t sit on our stories. 

Inspired by people like Sub Pop and Dischord Records, although more specifically David Moody and his press Infected Books, I decided that things weren’t going to happen for me unless I made them happen. So, I took the first steps. 

I’ve started my own publishing label, Northern Republic. It puts some distance between me and my work. We’ve got a website, we’ve got logos, and we’ve got other books on deck. Northern Republic isn’t a traditional press, but it will be associated with some brilliant books. Hopefully, starting with mine. 

MW:   How did you find the self-pubbing experience? 

DH:   Bewildering at first. Everything is new and everyone has an opinion on every conceivable option you can take for your book. I’ve worked with small presses before, so I know what I like and what I don’t. 

The key thing for me was to get a belting cover. I am fascinated by graphic design, probably because I’m terrible at it. I hired Luke Spooner of Carrion House to do the artwork and he’s been brilliant. A great talent and spot on to work with. He’s been really patient with my dumb questions and turned out a top-notch cover. 

My technical skills are pretty limited, and I leaned heavily on the experience of others. It’s not something I’m ashamed of. Everyone has to learn somehow! Some people have really helped me, particularly Paul Stephenson of Hollow Stone Press was a living legend. He saved me with formatting etc. It’s something I’ll be picking up myself going forward, hopefully. 

The most interesting thing to learn is the marketing. There are so many theories and different ways of promoting your book. Some people lean heavily on ads but I don’t know enough about the route for it be anything other than wasted money right now. 

Instead, I’ve leaned on contacts I’ve already. Made contact with lovely people such as yourself for a bit of a boost. I think that’s an important part of it, exploring the horror community. I’m in touch now with sites that I’ve followed for years and some of them are publishing either reviews or articles I’ve written. 

What’s been amazing is seeing not only how these sites can help me, but what I can give back to the genre as well. How I can help other writers and give them a platform, something I’ve tried to do via the signal boost section on my newsletter and through interviews on my author website. 

MW:   What got you into writing? 

DH:   Stepping fully into the cliché, in some form or another, I’ve written for a very long time. Whether it was terrible songs, terrible scripts or terrible stories, I spent time writing when I was younger. I’d always messed about with words but never took it hugely seriously. 

In 2012, I joined a writing group near where I lived. It was around that time I discovered that horror was where my fiction gravitated to. I didn’t write as much as I should back then. It was only when my daughter was born in summer 2016 that the need to really create and take it seriously bubbled over. 
Since then I’ve written 5 novels, a couple of novellas and a bunch of short stories. I write five days a week, pretty much come hell or high water. I’ve broken the back of resistance and carved out a daily habit, one that I won’t let go of. 

MW:   Tell me about the process for the collection. How did you decide on the stories to include and how did you decide the running order? 

DH:   Good question! 

I always knew I would close the collection with Collaboration. It leaves the reader with something to chew on. I also wanted to start with a bang. Dustin is one of my favourites in this book, so it seemed a natural choice. I feel as though that story was where I really started to find my voice. 

In between, I went by feel really. There was no science or no luck involved. I went through the pieces one by one and moved them around until I felt comfortable. I have my cornerstones and the rest fitted around them naturally really.

MW:   So what’s next?

DH:   Hopefully getting a novel published one way or another. I’ve just finished a novel, a kinda crime/thriller/dystopian piece. I actually really like it, but it needs a thorough edit. For sure. Where that one will land, who knows? 

I’ve just finished a new novella that will likely be my next release from Northern Republic towards the back end of the year. After that, perhaps start to release some of the novels I’ve got under my belt as well as there are some books I’m really proud of there. 

Direct book link - https://books2read.com/darkmissives

Matryoshka, by Penny Jones

In a new edition of the occasional series, I want to tell you about a book I've read and loved, which I think adds to the horror genre and that I think you'll enjoy if you're a fan.

There’s something wrong with her husband, Mark. Lucy had heard all the rumours about him, the whispered warning behind her back. The half heard Chinese whispers seemed to haunt her, mocking her wherever she goes. Now it appears that whatever’s the matter with Mark is spreading; tainting, infecting both strangers and those that she loves the most. So, Lucy will go to any lengths to protect both her young daughter and her unborn child.

Lucy is heavily pregnant with her second child and struggling to cope with her three-year-old Susie.  There’s also something wrong with her husband Mark - she’s heard rumours about him, whispered warning behind her back, mocking her wherever she goes. Now it seems whatever’s the matter with him is spreading, tainting strangers and those she loves the most so Lucy has to do whatever it takes to protect her children.

I went into this knowing very little about it and it worked all the better for it.  Having now read it, I’m not sure of how much to discuss in this review without spoiling the twists and turns that readers need to discover for themselves.  Online, Jones has said the novella is “about child birth, loss of identity and post-partum psychosis”, which it absolutely is and once you realise things are going very badly for Lucy, everything goes downhill.  You can see the signs, Lucy can almost see the signs, but there’s too much forward motion for her to make any changes.  Well told with a pace that doesn’t let up, this feels claustrophobic and oppressive, horrific but realistic and offers no easy get outs.  It also presses a lot of soft spots on the way (I found myself cringing in places), including an excellent sustained sequence in a caravan park that will make any parent sweat.  Lucy is a compelling protagonist, clearly suffering mentally and trying to keep herself together and she has our sympathy, even when she does things that make those around her question her sanity.  With a clever last line, this is well worth a read and I would very much recommend it.

* * *

I'm lucky enough to know Penny and her husband, having hung out with them at various Cons and a Crusty Exterior gathering and she kindly agreed to answer some of my questions.

PJ:   Hi Mark, thanks for inviting me to prattle on about my new novella, I was so nervous when you said you were reading it. I get really bad impostor syndrome every time I have anything published, and as this book was written entirely during lockdown, my mind weasels have been working overtime.

MW:   It's good to have you here!  So where did the original spark for Matryoshka come from? 

PJ:   The story is very loosely based on a patient I nursed years ago who developed post-partum psychosis during the last two weeks of their pregnancy. It was a terrifying time for all involved, but for the mother to be it was like she was living through a horror movie. She believed that there was a family curse, that her own mother had actually given birth to twins and that the twins were given away at birth as they were evil, and that her twin was out there slowly swapping each member of the family with their evil twin. Imagine finding yourself forced into a psychiatric hospital, locked up, believing that your four year old son had been replaced, that your mother was not your mother, that your husband was under the spell of your own evil twin and that they were only waiting for the birth of your daughter to steal her away as well. For her family and for the medical professionals involved in her care it was terrifying: she was refusing medication and she wouldn’t eat or drink because she was sure we were poisoning her. She was a flight risk but we couldn’t restrain her because of the advanced stages of her pregnancy, she actually did manage to escape from the hospital and ended up barricading herself in her attic, no one could get up there and she only just fitted, so even if we got up there, no one would have been able to safely get her down again. I decided against adding the attic ending to my novella as I thought my readers would have found it far-fetched. In case anyone is worried, she had a healthy baby (though labour did start in the attic, it did not finish there) and following the birth she accepted treatment and when she came back to see us six months later mother, baby and family were all doing well.

MW:   Well that's reassuring!  Lucy is a fantastic character, did she appear fully formed or did you have to develop her?

PJ:   As I said in the previous question the story is loosely based on a patient of mine, and Lucy herself definitely draws attributes from several of the women I have nursed over the years who have had post-partum psychosis and depression. Rosemary from Rosemary’s Baby was also a strong influence in the character of Lucy and in the writing style I used for her. I was aiming for that unstable narrator throughout Matryoshka. 

But as with a lot of my characters there is a whole lot of me in there as well. I feel for a character to be fully formed there has to be a level of truth to their actions and behaviours. When I originally pitched the idea to Peter Mark May at Hersham Horror, I said my main concern was that I didn’t want the reader to feel cheated, as another nurse was fond to say I didn’t want to be a Dirty Birdy with my story. So I tried to put myself in Lucy’s shoes, took off my author head and tried to write her reactions as if they were my own in the same situation, as if I as the writer didn’t know if what was happening to Lucy was real or a slow descent into madness.

The Crusty Exterior in Ye Old Trip To Jerusalem, April 2019
from left - Wayne Parkin, Penny, Simon Jones, me, Ross Warren, Phil Sloman and James Everington

MW:   In your story notes, you mention that children scare you.  Did you find that factor helped or hindered you with this?  For what it’s worth, I read this as a parent dreading what might happen next.

PJ:   Children do scare me. I think they are an excellent trope that can never be overused in the horror genre. There is something innately alien about them, something other, an uncanny valley where their whole persona is so slightly off kilter from our own. They mimic us (both our good and our bad traits) to learn how to be functioning member of society. And there is something both comforting and terrifying in watching someone trying to be you (Vivarium builds the tension in this symbiotic relationship brilliantly). I am aware though that children in horror can be also be very divisive for readers. There are some readers who won’t be interested in the parent / child dynamic, and there will be those who will read it through the eyes of parents, fearful for the child, and there will be those who will read it fearful of the child. Each person’s own relation with the children in their life will colour the way they read a book with children at the heart of it, and it is balancing the story so that it can resonate with as many readers as possible without losing its central concept that is most tricky. I know that I am scared of children, but what I think is terrifying, someone else will see as endearing. So that balance of behaviours being both realistic and unnerving is really difficult to get onto the page.

MW:   Your pacing with this is very good, do you find the novella length works best for you?

PJ:   This was actually my first novella, I usually write short stories, and they tend to be short, short stories, my sweet point is only about 4,000 words. But I always knew this was going to be a novella length piece as there was too much to tell in a short story, but I thought it would loose its ambiguous horror if it was novel length. I really enjoyed writing it and I certainly have one other novella length piece that I want to write. 

MW:   And what’s next?

PJ:   I’m currently working on what I think will be a novel, though unlike my first novel, which I wrote very specifically on a traditional story arc and which came out at a traditional novel length of 90,000 words. This one I’m allowing some freedom to it, so if it ends up as another novella I won’t be disappointed. I’ve actually planned this story out, which is something I never do, though how useful that will be I have no idea, as so far I have missed out the second of my chapter post-its, and now I’m on post-it four, I’ve decided that the previous chapters probably aren’t needed. My elevator pitch for the story is Bridget Jones meets The Wicker Man.

MW:   Well that sounds very intriguing!  Good luck with it!

* * *

Penny Jones knew she was a writer when she started to talk about herself in the third person (her family knew when Santa bought her a typewriter for Christmas when she was three). Penny’s debut collection Suffer Little Children published by Black Shuck Books was shortlisted for the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer, and her short story Dendrochronology published by Hersham Horror was shortlisted for the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story.

https://www.penny-jones.com

The Joy Of Fango

I was aware of Fangoria magazine long before I finally found a copy, sometime in the mid-80s, most likely from mentions in Starlog magazine, the Young Ones episode Nasty and the furore around the Video Nasties.  Recently, I managed to re-connect with my past and picked up - from ebay - the first issue I ever read.

Fangoria magazine was launched in 1979 as a companion to Starlog, which covered sci-fi films.  The first issue, published in July, was edited by “Joe Bonham” (Ed Naha and Ric Meyers) after which Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin took over.  Initially focusing on fantasy films, the magazine didn’t really gain traction until positive audience response was noticed for an article celebrating effects artist Tom Savini (and his gruesome work for Dawn Of The Dead (1978)), at which point Martin was given the chance to shift focus.  The seventh issue, with a cover story of The Shining (1980), was apparently the first to achieve a profit and set a formula the magazine stuck with for at least as long as I read it.  Martin remained as editor until 1986 (he left to work with Frank Henenlotter on the screenplays for Frankenhooker (1990) - still a real favourite of mine - and Basket Case 3 (1991)) and was eventually replaced by Tony Timpone, who successfully steered Fangoria through to the 2000’s.  Chris Alexander took over in 2010 but the magazine was caught up in various strifes of the publishing company, leading to sporadic issues, radical design changes and lack of focus.  After being missing in action for a while, it’s apparently up and running again now but has never tempted me back.

I discovered the magazine in a newsagents on Newland Street in Kettering, popping in so often to check for new issues I ended up friendly with the man who ran the shop.  I bought almost every issue from there, so much so that Alison & I always referred to it as The Fango Shop (something Dude picked up too - he’d come in to buy “Dad’s horror comic” with me, though he never read it), though sadly the shop’s now under new ownership.  Much later, when I discovered The Cinema Store in London, I was able to pick up some back issues for reasonable prices but, sadly, that place has now long-since disappeared too (it's almost like there's a trend, eh?).

But back then, Fangoria turned out to be everything I ever wanted it to be - and more!

I think my first regular issue was Fango 58 (I wish I could be sure but, sadly, lent a friend my entire run, from 1986 to 1990 or so and have never seen them again) and it was just perfect for me - full of interesting behind the scenes articles, news, book reviews, wonderfully gory colour pictures and a complete love for the types of horror films that I adored.  It made stars of the make-up effects people (like Rick Baker, the afore-mentioned Tom Savini, Rob Bottin, the KNB boys and many more), the writers and directors of the types of films you’d see with gaudy covers in video shops and the lesser known actors who made those films so damned watchable.  

The 80s was also a boom time - the slasher cycle might have been running down slowly but horror was big news, with Freddy and Jason and Re-Animator (1985) and all else.  I was going to the cinema, watching these things on double bills with friends, catching up with titles I’d missed on VHS and often on the recommendation of Fango, whose articles had whetted my appetite.

Not that the magazine wasn’t misunderstood.  Since my kid sister Sarah was only about 3 or 4 at the time and frequently wandered into my bedroom to see what I was doing, I had to hide Fango away lest I scar her for life.  Years later, Alison tolerated it well but I remember my sister-in-law once asking me if a picture she saw was real.  I enjoyed the Fango sense of humour and community - I felt like I belonged - but it really wasn’t a mainstream gang by any means and I was perfectly alright with that.

The Bloody Best, I can see now, is a money-making compilation but as a greatest hits package, it worked brilliantly.  Just look at the articles in the issue - David Cronenberg, Tom Savini, Dick Miller, Brian DePalma, Wes Craven, George Romero, Elvira, Re-Animator, Nightmare On Elm Street (Englund and his make-up) as well as Stephen King and Peter Straub.  It’s difficult in this day and age, where everything is online and we know about films as soon as they’re announced, to fully convey the size of its impact but imagine being a teenaged horror fan, opening up a treasure trove like this.

As I mentioned, I found the magazine (in a bundle with Bloody Best 3 and 4 too!) on ebay and bought it with birthday money from my parents (I told them they’d bought me Fango and Dad, with a smile in his voice, said “is it still gory…?”) and re-reading it has been wonderful.  The magazine is filled with articles that instantly throw me back to 1986, that I read so often I could practically quote them and pictures so vivid they’ve never left my minds eye.  

While you can’t go back (and I have absolutely no intention of seeking out the latest Fango), occasionally you can visit the old days and sometimes that’s just as good.