Ashthorne
APRIL YATES
Amazon | Ghost Orchid Shop
Paperback: 978-1-7399968-6-4
E-book: 978-1-7399968-7-1
In the aftermath of WWI, Adelaide Frost is on the run from a family who do not understand her. Hoping to do some good, she signs up to become a nurse at Ashthorne, a manor house newly designated as a convalescence home for injured soldiers. She quickly falls in love with the owner’s daughter, Evelyn, who hides a warm heart beneath a chilly exterior. But Evelyn has her suspicions about what’s really happening at the hospital, and as Adelaide helps her investigate, it soon becomes apparent that there are more inhabitants residing at Ashthorne than first thought.
A romantic Gothic treat perfect for fans of Sarah Waters and The Haunting of Bly Manor, Ashthorne is the debut novella by Derbyshire author April Yates, who was inspired to tell this story by the Ice Age art carved into the walls of local caves.
Praise for Ashthorne:
“Lush, powerfully-written, elegiac and disquieting, Ashthorne confirms April Yates as one of the brightest and most talented new stars in the queer horror firmament. It’s grisly, it’s gothic and it’s gay as hell: you’re going to love it.”
— T.C. Parker, author of Hummingbird
“From the very first page, you know Ashthorne House is going to be trouble, and you can’t resist. It’s dripping with atmosphere and comfortingly familiar, especially if you love a historical manor house setting, but wraps a modern voice around a romance that’s to die for. If you’ve ever thought ‘I wish Downton Abbey could be scary and queer’, and who among us hasn’t, really, then this is the book for you.”
— Alex Woodroe, author of Whisperwood, editor at Tenebrous Press
“Ashthorne is a harrowing tale that you won’t be able to put down, especially when it hurts.”
— Caitlin Marceau, author of Palimpsest and This is Where We Talk Things Out
Estimated Publication Date: 23rd August 2022
Skin Grows Over
LUCY ELIZABETH ALLAN
Amazon | Ghost Orchid Shop
Paperback: 978-1-7399968-4-0
E-book: 978-1-7399968-5-7
A young woman who has never learned how to grieve begins to come apart following the loss of the one friend who truly understood her. A mysterious and obsessive Humanist celebrant prepares to perform the most important funeral of her life. A world-weary and weather-beaten museum custodian resigns herself to hosting a mysterious ceremony that goes against everything she believes in. Connecting the three of them, a centuries-old bog mummy, hovering around it all, watching, waiting to be put to rest.
Skin Grows Over weaves realism with uncanny horror, using images of deep history and the otherworldly Scottish wilderness to tell a very modern tale about grief, queerness, and female embodiment. In a culture where dead women are objects of immaculate peaceful beauty existing only to be mourned by others, this grotesque and earthy dead woman who refuses to stay dead comes to represent the uncanny overlap of grief and female embodiment, in all its ugly humanity.
Praise for Skin Grows Over:
“Skin Grows Over is a haunting meditation on death, bodies, and difference. Ali, an untethered and unmoored young woman, is deeply affected by the death of her childhood friend Ana – even more so, because she had begun to push Ana away, and camouflage her own differences to better fit into the modern world. When Ali forms a tangible and uncanny connection with a female bog body, due to be laid to rest in a half-mystical, half-elegiac ceremony taking place in the wilderness of Flanders Moss, she is forced to confront her own buried grief, and the power – and sadness – those differences might bring.
Fans of Andrew Michael Hurley will find much to love in these remote, folk-horror-redolent landscapes; fans of Lucie McKnight Hardy will be delighted by Allan’s intricate and deft characterisation, presenting many potential visions of female power and resilience. This is, quite simply, an extraordinary book, and Allan an astonishing new talent.”
– Ally Wilkes, author of All the White Spaces
“Eerie and beautiful, this story explores the heartbreak of death and loss. Let it lead you through a deep, mystical world of incantations to the edge of the earth where haunted souls submerge, roped together in grief.”
— Anna Cheung, author of Where Decay Sleeps
“Skin Grows Over has the chilly bones of pure gothic horror with a warm, tender, utterly human heart at its centre. Fiercely queer and feminist, it draws together the historical and supernatural to tell a profoundly contemporary story about memory, identity and how we might find ourselves through those we have lost.
I loved this sensory, cinematic haunting which carried me from city to rain lashed country and moved me completely. Lyrical, literary and pacy, Skin Grows Over will capture the imagination, chill the marrow and move the emotions in equal measure and belongs among the best of contemporary horror writing.”
— Rose Ruane, author of This is Yesterday
“Blood under skin can’t be like water under the bridge; sexuality and grief, the strongest of human experiences, make Skin Grows Over that veiny red thumping. Lucy Elizabeth Allan has cut together a gripping narrator, Ali, who has dirt stuck under her skin and an inability to connect, emotionally, with women unburied. Yet no longer able to see herself in their rotted flesh, she must confront the unsaid and bring herself back out from under her own surfaces. Skin Grows Over is a truly smooth, haunting novella to be read—and feared—in one unstraight sitting.”
—Pascale Potvin, Editor-in-Chief of Wrongdoing Magazine
Publication Date: 19th July 2022
The Devil’s Gift
JOSHUA ROBINSON
Amazon | Ghost Orchid Shop
Paperback: 978-1-9196387-6-8
E-book: 978-1-9196387-7-5
Lonely and bullied at school, all twelve-year-old Daniel wants is a girlfriend. The mysterious girl at his local park seems like the perfect candidate. But when a jogger goes missing, Daniel discovers Gabriella’s secret: she’s a killer. One with a very unusual diet.
Lovestruck with a girl who can help him finally stand up to his bullies, Daniel has everything he’s always wanted. Can he really give it all up and turn Gabriella in? And does she love him enough to let him?
Praise for The Devil’s Gift:
“A coming-of-age tale with echoes of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, it gets under your skin and makes you wonder, what would you have done? Because when you’re 12 and in love, you’d do anything to try and justify your actions. DEVIL’S GIFT explores how far we are willing to go, especially when the one we love has certain tastes that need accommodating. A creepy little page-turner.”
— Janine Pipe, Splatterpunk Award nominated author of SAUSAGES – The Making of Dog Soldiers
“THE DEVIL’S GIFT is a fantastic coming of age horror tale with shades of Lindqvist’s LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and Grady Hendrix’s THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUBS GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES, but altogether unique. A perfect read for a Summer afternoon in the shade.”
— Donnie Goodman, author of THE RAZORBLADES IN MY HEAD
“A coming of age tale with heart…and teeth.”
— Ali Seay, author of TO OFFER HER PLEASURE
Publication Date: 20th April 2022
Sair Back, Sair Banes
ANTHONY ENGEBRETSON
Amazon | Ghost Orchid Shop
Paperback: 978-1-7399968-2-6
E-book: 978-1-7399968-3-3
Genevieve hoped a trip to the Scottish village of Fonniskie would help her reconnect. But her vacation turns out to be less than relaxing: the nearby loch holds a dark secret, and Genevieve finds herself haunted by a relentless pursuer whose obsession means he will do anything to possess her—even kill.
Blending ancient folklore with modern alienation, Anthony Engebretson’s eerie debut novella will make you question what it really means to be human.
Praise for Sair Back, Sair Banes:
“Obsession, grief, and a family curse, all centered around a tiny town on the edge of a Scottish loch. In his debut novella, Sair Back, Sair Banes, Engebretson delivers a folkloric feast, featuring the shape-shifting kelpie. I loved it!”
— Catherine McCarthy, author of IMMORTELLE
“Melancholy and magical, Engebretson’s debut novella is a whole, misty mood, steeped in lore and loneliness. Atmospheric and compelling, a thoroughly recommended read.”
— Gemma Amor, Bram Stoker Award nominated author of DEAR LAURA
“Sair Back, Sair Banes is a masterclass in folk horror. Beautiful and devastating, Engebretson’s compelling world will draw you in and Genevieve’s tragic journey won’t let you go.”
— Caitlin Marceau, author of PALIMPSEST
Publication Date: 17th May 2022