“Within Hill’s characters and the spectres they face we see our modern concerns and fears, reflected back at us.”
From the foggy streets of Victorian London to the eerie perfection of 1950s suburbia, the everyday is invaded by the evil otherworldly in this unforgettable collection of new ghost stories from the author of The Woman in Black.
In the title story, on a murky evening in a warmly lit club off St James, a bishop listens closely as a paranormal detective recounts his most memorable case, one whose horrifying denouement took place in that very building.
In ‘The Front Room’, a devoutly Christian mother tries to protect her children from the evil influence of their grandmother, both when she is alive and when she is dead.
A lonely boy finds a friend in ‘Boy Number 21’, but years later he is forced to question the nature of that friendship, and to ask whether ghosts can perish in fires.
This is Susan Hill at her best, telling characteristically flesh-creeping and startling tales of thwarted ambition, terrifying revenge and supernatural stirrings that will leave readers wide-awake long into the night.
Why We’re Excited About This Book:
The most popular modern ghost story in the traditional mode must be Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black, which has found success as a novel, stage-play and film. Triumphantly old-school in its Gothic trappings, The Woman In Black proved there was a big demand for this kind of slow and atmospheric horror. Hill has written other ghostly novels since then, among them The Man In The Picture and The Small Hand. Now she’s releasing a collection of her shorter horror fiction, The Travelling Bag & Other Ghostly Tales.
The stories within continue Hill’s use of historical settings, with tales that range from Victorian London to the 1950s. Indeed, the title story utilises that most popular of introductions to a ghost story: a man telling a tale during an evening at his private club. But Hill is too modern and sophisticated a writer for her work to be purely pastiche; within her characters and the spectres they face we see our modern concerns and fears, reflected back at us.
The Travelling Bag & Other Ghostly Stories is out on 29 September 2016 from Profile Books.
“Ten Tall Tales promises to be a varied and eclectic anthology indeed.”
Ten tall tales of horror, dark fantasy and dark science fiction, commissioned from some of the most twisted imaginations writing today, as part of NewCon Press’ 10th anniversary celebrations. Each story is inter-leafed with a wicked limerick from that master of terror, Ramsey Campbell.
Why We’re Excited About This Book:
NewCon Press continues its tenth birthday celebrations with Ten Talls Tales, an anthology of horror and dark fantasy in which each story has some connection to the number ten. With story from Paul Kane, Lynda Rucker, Michael Marshall Smith, Sarah Pinborough, Mark West and Andrew Hook, among others, this promises to be a varied and eclectic anthology indeed. It’s a testimony to the quality of NewCon Press’s titles that they’ve lasted a decade and Ten Tall Tales shows that they are still going strong.
Special mention must go to Simon Clark’s story, the title of which is quite brilliant: ‘We Know By The Tenth Day Whether They Live Or Die’.
And if you’re wondering why there’s eleven authors listed on the cover not ten, that’s because the book also features ten dark limericks from the master of horror himself, Ramsey Campbell.
Ten Tall Tales will be released as both a paperback and limited edition hardback and will be officially launched at FantasyCon 2016.
Ten Tall Tales is available to pre-order now from NewCon Press.
JAMES EVERINGTON