“The Bureau Of Them is Cate Gardner’s best work yet.”
You’re not the first to talk to your dead here, the vagrant said. The living always chase after their dead until they come upon their own. Formed from shadow and dust, ghosts inhabit the abandoned office building, angry at the world that denies them. When Katy sees her deceased boyfriend in the window of the derelict building, she finds a way in, hoping to be reunited. Instead, the dead ignore, the dead do not see and only the monster that is Yarker Ryland has need of her there.
Why We’re Excited About This Book:
No one writes books quite like Cate Gardner. Surreal, dark and quirky, her work reads like a combination of Gaiman, Roald Dahl and The League Of Gentlemen. But it’s even better than that sounds.
The Bureau Of Them is perhaps Gardner’s best work yet, a novella that combines her patented strangeness with a genuinely moving study of grief, loss and what it means not to let go. Katy is still grieving for her dead boyfriend when one day she sees him again… Of course, many horror stories are about the deceased returning, but Gardner’s dead are sad and lifeless figures, shuffling reminders of their absence from the world. All except one, the villain of the piece, the monstrous Yarker Ryland.
It’s another compelling tale, told in Gardner’s inimitable style. Don’t miss out on this one. Because no one writes books quite like Cate Gardner.
The Bureau Of Them is out on 23 September 2016 from Snowbooks.
“Craze is a masterful homage to 80s pulp horror.”
A wave of terrifying paranormal phenomena has swept the UK. A virulent plague known as the Red Death has decimated the population. Law and order has broken down.
The Crisis Powers Government, operating from the fortified heart of London, is attempting to regain control, whilst a shadowy terrorist organisation is rumoured to be harnessing the power of darkness for its own ends.
To escape a riot-torn inner city, a group of survivors must band together, but their flight will force a harrowing confrontation with the demonic forces at the heart of society’s collapse.
Why We’re Excited About This Book:
Steve Byrne’s debut novel, Phoenix, was a fantastically well realised horror story set in war-torn Vietnam. Part of its appeal was Byrne’s evocation of a country being torn apart by forces outside its control. In his latest release he does it again, this time closer to home. Craze depicts a United Kingdom overrun and overwhelmed by demonic forces, plagues and witchcraft. A central Crisis Powers Government is still nominally in control of the country, but right from the start Craze depicts a country succumbing to looting, criminality and anarchy.
Byrne excels at depicting this kind of setting, at showing characters struggling to retain a sense of normalcy in a world skewed beyond recognition. The attention to detail is spot on, drawing the reader in and making the chaos seem all too plausible. Craze is a masterful homage to 80s pulp horror.
Full of action and dramatic set-pieces, but with a darker and more anarchistic heart than most commercial fiction, Craze is another must read from Byrne.
Craze is out now from PunkLit.
JAMES EVERINGTON