Our Books

Disturbing, atmospheric suspense novel from the author of Only Darkness: ‘Dark, edgy and compelling, this is a first novel from a writer to watch’ TheTimes

Snake Pass, the Peak District: The car of Gemma Wishart, a young researcher in Russian languages, is discovered, abandoned, by a walker; the driver has vanished without trace. Over in Hull, the body of a woman is discovered battered to death in a hotel bathroom; the only clue to her identity is a card bearing the name of an escort agency notorious for its suspected trafficking in Eastern European prostitutes.

Dark, edgy and unbearably tense, this extraordinarily accomplished first novel is both a love story and a gripping psychological thriller of immense power.

Debbie Sykes is a young college lecturer whose ordered life is about to be changed forever. One stormy winter’s night, waiting for the late train home, Debbie is acutely aware of being alone – the woman who usually shares her evening vigil is not there. Vulnerability turns to fear, though, when she turns to see a sinister figure looming between her and the safety of the street. The next day, she hears that the missing woman has been found murdered by the man they call the Strangler, a brutal killer who dumps his victims on isolated stretches of railway track.

The police renew their efforts to find the murderer before he strikes again, but how much time do they really have? When Debbie’s story is publicized by an unscrupulous journalist, it seems as though the jaws of an invisible trap are beginning to close around her – strange things start to happen and the foundations of Debbie’s life subtly shift. Only Rob Neave, ex-policeman and college security officer, appears aware of the danger but he is distracted by his own tragic past. The clock is ticking, and it will be midnight far sooner than anyone thinks.

How do you win a high-stakes game when you don't even know you're being played?

Competent, driven, broken: Moira Dolan is a talented investigator who buries herself in work to hide from her past. She succeeded, until her brother, Keagan, wrecked her career. Now she works for the Proteus Collective.
By night, she's tormented by the same dream. By day, she's assigned dead-end cases by Ferris - a boss who seems intent on making her fail. It appears personal, until Keagan goes missing and Ferris' actions are cast in a whole new light...
Moira thinks her latest assignment will have her chasing ghosts between the stars, but instead she uncovers a deadly conspiracy threatening the precarious balance between the galaxy's major powers, one that could cost billions of lives.

If you're not predator, you're prey.

A dark psychological thriller that will hold the reader in its grip from beginning to end, Silent Playgrounds is the stunning follow-up to Danuta Reah’s highly praised debut, Only Darkness.

The path through the park runs from the centre of the city into the wilds of the countryside. At weekends the area is a playground for children and walkers, but during the week it is silent and deserted.

When six-year-old Lucy gets lost there one day, her disappearance sparks a chain of events leading to the murder of a young woman. Lucy tries to warn the people she cares about of the danger: she knows that there are monsters lurking in the rambling park, and she knows that they are getting closer.

What should be a straightforward investigation leads DI Steve McCarthy into a web of lies and evasions, where nothing is quite as it seems and everyone seems to be hiding something. With each step forward McCarthy faces new questions, and if he is to prevent an escalation in violence, he has to find some answers – fast.

Arcadia is where all is tranquil, balanced and harmonious. Aidan Hamilton is an artist and a teacher. He works in a college of education where he is able happily and effectively to combine both aspects of his vocation. He teaches student teachers, and he paints Arcadia. While he does not push the notion of Arcadia too far, he never ceases to give thanks to the Gods he doesn't believe in, for having been called to such congenial labour. His favourite artist is Nicholas Poussin. Poussin, in Italy in the seventeenth century, painted landscapes which embodied the very essence of Arcadia with its lofty trees, its olive groves, its distant walled city basking in the golden light of the late afternoon sun. At first, you do not see, in a dark shadowed overhang of rock a man being crushed by a serpent. Aidan is also blessed with a family, a wife and two beautiful and adoring daughters. Here lurks the serpent. Cathy, Aidan's wife, cannot love their elder daughter, Bobbie. Slowly and inexorably, she is crushing Bobbie's happiness, and destroying the secure world within which the family has been safe, and Aidan's desperate attempts to mediate are of no avail. And then the talented Louise De Grey arrives at the college.

10% of the proceeds from this book will be donated to the freedom from torture charity

Sex, sport and alcohol are why Nick Blaketon escaped to college, but when pieces of his life start disappearing he locks on to chaste Alice for stability. Only it’s not the alcohol affecting him. And seducing Alice lays a path to a past that isn’t buried, and definitely isn’t dead.

Linda Acaster is an award-winning author of four novels and 70+ short stories, some collected into ‘Contribution to Mankind and other stories of the Dark’. She lives in the UK surrounded by an ancient landscape full of ghosts.

Book 2 in the Torc of Moonlight trilogy

...an enthralling, nuanced read...

Grief-stricken Nick Blaketon is working in York, a mediaeval city of half-timbered houses and tight cobbled streets where Viking re-enactors thrill the tourists. Yet once it was a Roman town that garrisoned the Ninth Legion and the Sixth Victrix. Deep in modern cellars a sacrifice stirs as a temple rebuilds.

Nick believes his dead lover, Alice, is lost to him forever – until she erupts in a flood of water begging to be freed.

Vibius Fulcinius believes the Christ-men aim to eliminate the true religions, and vows to protect the Temple of Mithras.

York police believe Sophie Trevott is leading a double life, and that mentally fragile Blaketon is involved in her disappearance.

When a Roman lamp appears on his desk, Nick suspects that Alice’s nightly visits are altering the flow of time. Before it realigns, can he can snatch her back from death and restore her to him?

...a beautifully crafted paranormal thriller...

From initial idea, through the story itself, to a commentary explaining the decisions made during its creation, this book leads the reader through the detailed thinking behind ten stories across a range of genres:

* Lyrical narrative v terse dialogue (Mainstream)

* Characterisation through deed and thought (Horror)

* A calendar structure using the Tell technique (Women’s Fiction)

* The importance of pacing (Twist in the Tail)

* Use of alliteration, rhythm & subliminal detailing (Romance)

* Using the Show technique to elicit a reader response (Drama)

* Building fiction with an unsympathetic narrator (Crime)

* Working with parallel storylines via past and present tense (SF)

* Conjuring the weird from the everyday (Fantasy)

* Writing for performance and sound effects (Historical)

* Editing: ten common problems explored

Written by the author of over 70 short stories and five novels, this guide offers a unique insight into one writer’s creative process, setting a path to follow and showing the tools to use.

10% of the proceeds of this book will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Society (www.alzheimers.org.uk)

Buried Deep is Crime Dagger winner Penny Grubb’s 5th book in her private investigator series, but also book 1 of her Webber & Ahmed police procedurals.

In the aftermath of a flash flood in the historic town of York, something nasty emerges from the surging waters. It sets off a police investigation and a train of events that reach further than anyone anticipated. And while they’re struggling to understand the far-reaching consequences, no one has thought to look nearer home.