Pictures! We interrupt our normal programming to bring you coverage of a new book by Charles van Sandwyk, How to See Fairies, with some rather spiffy art to show off (all the illustrations should be clickable for much larger versions).
Illustration C2018 Charles van Sandwyk from The Folio Society’s How To See Fairies
A kindly move by us, for, as Dave Brzeski says in his article below, people nowadays (including greydogtales) do indeed like to take the fae/fey “back to their very earliest roots”, exposing their sly, inhuman ways –
Clinging to the cotton-grass, claws wrapped round stalks and stems, narrow heads lifting. Out of the half-world to play, soft pipes and changelings, curdled milk and blood on the bedsheets. The Children of Angles and Corners, as alike to the fey of folk-tales as a cleaver to a butter knife.
Their music is a scrape on glass, a lost child’s wail, forced through throats which do not quite exist. Their limbs twitch without sinews and bend where there are no joints. They see farmsteads and the flesh within, flesh that dances when plucked. Fat where they are lean, sweetmeats for their soured tongues…
The Horse Road, John Linwood Grant
But we shall not be perverse. This books reminds us more of lolling at home as children, flicking through the little ‘Flower Fairies’ books by Cicely Mary Barker (we were hoping that there would be more really malicious fey-folk – the Nightshade Berry Fairy was our favourite).
Art from another era, skilfully reborn today…
How to See Fairies and Other Tales
by Charles van Sandwyk
Reviewed by Dave Brzeski
Publisher: The Folio Society
Format: Hardcover in slipcase
I’m forced to begin this review with a question—Why have I never heard of Charles van Sandwyk before? This is almost inconceivable to me when you look at the superb quality of van Sandwyk’s artwork. It’s not as if he hasn’t been around a while. A quick look up on Wikipedia reveals that he’s had numerous books published since the late 80s, that he has paintings hanging in the National Library of Canada, as well as in several important private collections. Charles van Sandwyk is evidently not obscure.
This gorgeous, slipcased hardcover is, in fact a collection of previously printed works, collected together for the first time. Originally published in extremely limited edition runs by The Fairy Press, a division of Charles van Sandwyk Fine Arts. A good number of the illustrations are newly coloured, or completely new to this collection, thus making this volume an essential purchase even for those very lucky few to own copies of the original Fairy Press editions.
Illustration C2018 Charles van Sandwyk from The Folio Society’s How To See Fairies
The works included are…
The Fairy Market (2009)
How to See Fairies (1993)
The Gnome King’s Treasure Song (2000)
Pocket Guide to the Little People (1997)
Afterglow (2008)
Wee Folk (1994)
The Fairies’ Christmas (2001)
It’s immediately obvious that van Sandwyk is very familiar with the artists that trod this ground before him. In fact, this book is dedicated to Arthur Rackham, probably the greatest of them all. Van Sandwyk’s artwork is easily of sufficient quality to stand side by side with anyone from the grand master Rackham to Brian Froud. He even manages to capture the period feel of the earlier fairy artist’s work, while having a style completely of his own. One could wax eloquent about the brilliance of van Sandwyk’s artwork for page after page—there’s even a three panel foldout—but How to See Fairies isn’t simply a collection of great fantasy artwork. Van Sandwyk writes too…
It’s the fashion these days, to take fairy tales and the fae right back to their very earliest roots, by which I mean they tend to be a nasty, spiteful bunch and not something you’d ever be happy to encounter. Here, however, we harken back to the days when children’s authors presented a much kinder, more pleasant view of the little people. I certainly feel there’s room for both.
The Fairy Market, and indeed most of the book is told in verse and, astonishingly, van Sandwyk’s writing somehow manages to perfectly capture the style and feel of those classic children’s books most of us grew up with just as well as his artwork. It becomes immediately evident on reading that van Sandwyk isn’t simply knocking a few words together, on which to hang his pictures—the man can actually write!
Illustration C2018 Charles van Sandwyk from The Folio Society’s How To See Fairies
Pocket Guide to the Little People and Wee Folk are more along the lines of a bestiary of the fairy folk, the latter being very much a small collection of pictures with few words. The final item, The Fairies’ Christmas, also breaks from the mould, in that it’s a rather delightful vignette, not told in verse.
Considering that van Sandwyk is a decade younger than I, I cannot help but be impressed with the way he effortlessly transports me back to those years before he was born, when my mother taught me to read at least a year before I started school.
Illustration C2018 Charles van Sandwyk from The Folio Society’s How To See Fairies
If I could level any criticism at all at this beautiful book it would be that it’s in a rather too fine and expensive a format for children. I honestly can’t see many parents allowing their pre-schoolers to get their hands on it. Having said that, at £39.95, it doesn’t seem all that expensive for such a quality package.
The Folio Society’s How To See Fairies, authored and illustrated by Charles van Sandwyk, is available exclusively from www.FolioSociety.com
(All art copyright Folio Society/van Sandwyk 2018)
I talk a lot. It’s not that I don’t enjoy listening to flesh-people (I find them jolly interesting), it’s not a defence mechanism, and it’s not meant to overwhelm others – but my brain is one of those busy, shallow things, always on the go. If you’ve seen a pond with loads of mad little insects skimming across the surface in constant, frenetic motion, well, that surface is me. All the other writers are the deeper, contemplative waters beneath.
two typical flesh-people. last week
So, apart from my regular agoraphobia, meeting flesh-people is peculiar. Last week I went to a meeting of the Scandalous Bohemians, a group of Holmesian enthusiasts, and very nice it was too. Being well-mannered, I tried to not chip in all the time. Because of my shallow trivia-packed mind, I had things to say on almost every topic, but I sat back listening as much as I could. I was a Good Dog. Relatively.
In the next fortnight, I’m also making myself go to the annual UK Fantasycon, and speaking at the Ryedale Spookfest, part of their Literary Festival. More flesh-people. The first will be eased by my minder being present, there being a bar, and the fact that there are some nice folk I know there. The second may be helped by the advantage that I’m being interviewed, where you’re expected to talk. Phew.
I was reminded, looking at these commitments, of Mr Edwin Dry, the Deptford Assassin, who represents my alter-ego, the soul who neither talks a lot nor really wishes to hear the ins and outs of other lives:
“Arthur Hill was of modest county stock, a junior manager in his father’s engineering firm. Mr Dry was not greatly interested in his targets, but had endured the half-drunk father’s long, sometimes tearful explanation. A good boy, a credit to his late mother, bright at school. Arthur and his beloved gun-dog, the delightful country walks with his father and cousins… there had seemed no end to it.
“Mr Dry had been reminded why he merely killed people. Living with them must be intolerable.”
‘The Intrusion’, John Linwood Grant
And I sort of admire Mr Dry for simplifying things by making a decision early in his life: get on with your work, and filter out the nonsense that flesh-people produce. It does, unfortunately, make you into a quiet, lethal assassin working to a morality no one else can understand. Swings and roundabouts.
I don’t think my chattering self would last long if the Deptford Assassin was around. Mr Dry asks questions only when he wishes to know something directly of value to his work. Most people decide they’d better answer, sharpish. He listens only when necessary, when useful. It’s a fine discipline when you pad the streets of London with purpose.
Perhaps he’s the Anti-Linwood Grant, who will save us all.
in which mr dry hunts and listens, but rarely speaks
By the way, in all of these social situations I’d prefer to have the little donkeys (the lurchers, to you) with me, but practicalities of hotel policies aside, they have their own quirks. Chilli is very dominant, and bashes people in the groin to say hello, plus she tells almost every other dog to submit. And Django, who is affable and bumbling, likes to urinate on things and make them his. Not everyone likes a large black lurcher leaping into their lap whilst a half-kangaroo beast claims their briefcase, funnily enough.
So should you really wish, you can meet me and hear me mutter at Fantasycon 2018, in Chester from 19th – 21st October, and the Ryedale Spookfest, in Malton, Yorkshire, Saturday 27th October. Or you can be like the Deptford Assassin, and get on with something useful.
Time has been horrendously pressing this year, and we haven’t had time to do the October Frights Blog Hop justice – here are some writers (who are also flesh-people) we meant to mention . Organiser Anita Stewart has been busy with a series which we want to cover on greydogtales in the future, as one of our reviewers says it looks very promising – The Saga of the Outer Islands. Dark fantasy, with the second book out last month.
Another participant in October Frights, Christine Verstraete has released her second ‘Lizzie Borden’ re-imagined horror novel, Lizzie Borden Zombie Hunter 2: The Axe will Fall.
Finally, with Halloween on its way, we’ll nod to a further participant, one who has something coming out on October 26th 2018, deliberately timed for the season (so obviously, we haven’t been able to read it yet). Last autumn, writer Stephanie Ayers put out the first of a series of collections of short fiction, The 13: Tales of Illusory, and this year’s offering is The 13: Tales of Macabre.
“Killer watermelons, murderous jewelry boxes, centenarian sea whisperers, creatures of myth/legend, and more…
“This supernatural story collection will make you reconsider everything you thought you knew. At night you’ll hover under your covers while looking over your shoulder in the day. Down, down in the depths they fell; bodies in the dark of a liquid hell. Can you survive all 12?”
Stephanie adds:
“I write a lot of short stories, 90% of them creepy, spooky, horror-ish. I decided I would do one book of short stories a year, released around Halloween. Thus the whole The 13 series was born…
“Next I had to pick through all my stories and figure out which ones belonged in this volume. I revised and added to many of them and even wrote a few new stories, so several of them are never before seen, not even on my blog. I expect readers to get a little grossed out, feel a little squeamish, cower under their blankets, and look over their shoulders. I hope each story plays like a movie in their head and their spine crawls.”
More October bookerations today, dear listener. A quick note on a new novel by Willie Meikle, a guest review of a themed anthology, Welcome to the Show, complied by Matt Hayward and edited by Doug Murano, and a mention of another anthology on the wind from Planet X Publications – which also concerns a show, the classic US carnival.
Right, there are always far more interesting books than we can cover. So in addition to our usual wittering, articles and oddities, we’re going to include more guest reviews. We’ll still be doing our own thing, poking our cold wet noses into other people’s work and exploring, of course. We’re going for this approach because one of the biggest problems for small and independent presses (and their authors) is getting their works noticed at all.
The guest reviews will be clearly marked and attributed, just in case you get confused. Any opinions expressed in those sections belong to the reviewers, not us – our tastes are a bit peculiar, and we’ll make our own recommendations as we bumble along. This might also leave us more time to go back to lurchers and classic weird things!
What we ourselves are reading, by the way – about fifteen books at once, but Tade Thompson’s recent novel Rosewater is absolutely cracking and it looks like we’ll be recommending that one highly. First speculative novel we’ve read recently that was also a complete page-turner.
We’re also interested in Haunted are These Houses (from Unnerving), short stories and poetry with Gemma Files and others; Trade Yer Coffin for a Gun by Mer Whinery (from Muzzleland), Entranced by Eyes of Evil, edited by Tim Prasil (Brom Bones Books) and many more. We will try to report back.
The Green and the Black
Firstly, released this week we find Willie Meikle’s latest novel The Green and the Black, published by Crossroad Press.
“A small group of industrial archaeologists head into the centre of Newfoundland, investigating a rumour of a lost prospecting team of Irish miners in the late Nineteenth century. They find the remains of a mining operation, and a journal and papers detailing the extent of the miners’ activities. But there is something else on the site, something older than the miners, as old as the rock itself.
“Soon the archaeologists are coming under assault, from a strange infection that spreads like wildfire through mind and body, one that doctors seem powerless to define let alone control. The survivors only have one option. They must return to the mine, and face what waits for them, down in the deep dark places, where the green meets the black.”
William Meikle at his best, delivering strong, deftly-written prose entwined with a highly imaginative and richly-detailed mythological plot. It digs out the most disturbing elements of local folklore and legend and then uses them as a framework for a powerful, atmospheric and slow-burning piece of horror fiction that is often almost unbearably tense. – The Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer
And now we have writer/editor Duane Pesice on a new anthology from Crystal Lake Publishing, Welcome to the Show…
WELCOME TO THE SHOW
Reviewed by Duane Pesice
Here’s the pitch:
“We all know the old cliché: Sex, drugs and rock and roll. Now, add demons, other dimensions, monsters, revenge, human sacrifice, and a dash of the truly inexplicable. This is the story of the (fictional) San Francisco music venue, The Shantyman.
“In Welcome to the Show, seventeen of today’s hottest writers of horror and dark fiction come together in devilish harmony to trace The Shantyman’s history from its disturbing birth through its apocalyptic encore.”
Table of Contents:
Alan M Clark – What Sort of Rube
Jonathan Janz – Night and Day and in Between
John Skipp – In the Winter of No Love
Patrick Lacey – Wolf with Diamond Eyes
Bryan Smith – Pilgrimage
Rachel Autumn Deering – A Tongue like Fire
Glenn Rolfe – Master of Beyond
Matt Hayward – Dark Stage
Kelli Owen – Open Mic Night
Matt Serafini – Beat on the Past
Max Booth III – True Starmen
Somer Canon – Just to be Seen
Jeff Strand – Parody
Robert Ford – Ascending
Adam Cesare – The Southern Thing
Brian Keene – Running Free
Mary SanGiovanni – We Sang in Darkness
The Shantyman’s beginning isn’t really chronicled – it’s a going concern in even the oldest (chronologically-speaking) stories, such as Alan Clark’s excellent show-opener, which also treats with the associations of the venue’s name.
And it fades away rather than rusting…but that’s just a sales blurb.
This is a pro anthology, make no mistake about that. One quick glance at the ToC confirms that these are some of the best-regarded, most popular writers on the scene.
Each story is carefully-plotted, well-characterized. The gears turn when asked, and the overall impression is one of technical competence.
The strongest stories are at the front and the rear, with the middle, which mostly consists of random devil/demon stories, sagging somewhat. That section may not sag for every reader. Random violent demons are a proven market driver. For me, that’s the easy way out, as cheerless a prospect as seeing romantic vampires or viral zombies.
I like specific demons. Paimon is one thing, Pazuzu another. Take the time to research and develop your devils, I say. Out-Blish Blish if you can. Blatty took the time.
Some standouts – Clark’s story, Max Booth III’s piece, Mary Sangiovanni’s tale. Those are more imaginative and move to different music.
In the bulk of the tales here, The Shantyman stands in for the Fillmore West or a reasonable facsimile. It seems natural, given the premise. But, given the quality of the pen-wielders here, I wanted more. Perhaps some insight into the mind of a bandmember, by someone who knows the music biz. Maybe some instrument-talk, something to add verisimilitude, to demonstrate some love for the idea.
I’d have loved to see a haunted venue. A couple of the pieces flirt with the idea, but shy away in favor of outre ideas. Two have actual ghosts, and they’re pretty satisfying.
Kelli Owens’ Open Mic Night has some neat ideas along the ghostly track, and Adam Cesare’s The Southern Thing unrolls nicely, to choose a couple more stories that made me nod or smile.
Mind you, there are no BAD stories here. Even the least tale has redeeming qualities. The floor is very high, but the ceilings aren’t raised.
I’ll give it three and a half stars, and recommend that you read it and form your own opinion.
Duane Pesice is currently editing the anthologies Test Patterns 2: Creature Features, and Caravans Awry, from Planet X. Being jolly transparent, poor greydog will have stories in these, but we nabbed Duane to review simply because he offered and we were short of time. You can be reassured that even our nepotism and corruption are done in a rambling and confused manner.
Caravans Awry
An anthology of sixties carnival stories along Route 66
Due out October/November 2018 from Planet X.
When the clowns turn away, you know not to look. They are our hyenas, ready with their grinding jaws and their maniacal amusement at the world’s pain. If they cannot face what comes, you do not want to even glimpse it. I do not want to glimpse it.
But I did. Something came to the carnival that night, and I looked.
***
I don’t have a name for the outfit that owns me. We are Mr Maelstrom’s Fun Palace, and the Leman Brothers’ Travelling Show. Or White’s Circus, in a gentle season when the leaves have no edges, and children smile. We were Rousch’s Carnival a few years ago. I don’t remember further back.
I do remember an early autumn in the mid-sixties, and the abandoned gas station that we found. ‘Eddie’s Gas’, an imaginative name. The Twinkies in the vending machine were stale, specked with gray when we opened them, but everyone was hungry, and there were crates of flat cherry soda around the back. These was no sign of what had happened to Eddie, but what did we care?
The place had a septic tank into which we could drain the wagons, and under the cracked concrete apron there was still fuel in the underground tank. Jackie Knife found it, fooling around with one of the two rusty pumps and spraying herself in the process. Reynard the fire-eater closed in on her when he smelled the octane, but the clowns growled him back.
We’d put on five shows in a row across three towns. Wheels churned and axles creaked as we drove from one dead-eyed, God-fearing place to another, playing to half-crowds only. Weatherford and Clinton had paid, but not in cash. This was a land of preachers, who would stand outside the general store and denounce the carnival before it was dust on the horizon.
Sometimes that helped, the thrill of the forbidden, but mostly it made parents send their kids to their rooms, and teenagers hang around the edge of the fairground, hesitant. A good minister could smell us on the wind.
Wires – John Linwood Grant, for Caravans Awry
You can support Caravans Awry here by pledging/reserving a copy here:
Once again we’re part of this fun tour – sixteen horror-y writers this year, sharing posts, offering neat stuff and so on. Do have a look round, and we’ll have some more books news and guest posts on here over the next week.
Want some exciting thriller/horror reads? Today sees the paperback of greydog’s new novel The Assassin’s Coin released, so we bring you exclusive extracts from this and its sister book, The Prostitute’s Price by Alan M Clark. Conceived of as part of a joint project, both books feature female protagonists. And both books unfurl these women’s lives against the backdrop of events in Victorian Whitechapel, events which lead up to what has been called the Autumn of Terror.
assassin’s coin and prostitute’s price
These are not women without hope or ambition, nor are they mere adjuncts to men. The issues of Catherine Weatherhead and Mary Jane Kelly are issues of survival, respect, affection, solace and all those things which we seek for ourselves, male or female.
They are people, and their anger, frustration and fear are human things, not gender politics. They do live, however, in a period during which men have more options, rights and power, and so they must make constant, difficult decisions.
Our interwoven project covers the period autumn 1886 to autumn 1888, and each novel follows its own distinct story-line. Events which are clouded or mentioned in passing in one book may hold a different significance in the other, but each is complete in itself and can be read on its own.
NOTE: Some readers browse genres which represent their favourite types of fiction. The Assassin’s Coin and The Prostitute’s Price might be called historical thrillers or period horror. Can we say anything else helpful? Alan’s masterfully detailed tale of Mary Jane Kelly’s life is, of course, the story of the woman reported as the last victim of Jack the Ripper, with all the threat and horror that entails.
Greydog’s tale of Catherine Weatherhead also explores the world of Victorian spiritualists and the unforeseen consequences of being open to other ‘levels’ of existence.
Come have a quick look at our protagonists.
THE ASSASSIN’S COIN
by John Linwood Grant
Catherine Weatherhead, a woman in her early twenties with an unreliable psychic gift and little status beyond that which she can forge for herself…
Some women survive.
They survive despite everything set against them – disease, the injustices of society, and the casual ease with which a body can trip and fall under an omnibus or a drayman’s horse. They avoid the blows of a man’s grimy fist, the scratch of another woman’s claws, and the lawyers of the rapacious rich; they remain strangers to the poorhouse or the prison.
Mrs Bessovitch was one of those women.
Swathed in perpetual mourning, she used black lace and brocade to dissuade gentlemen callers, and sharp glances to see off the few who nevertheless persisted. She flaunted tragic memories of her husband, and shed onion tears for his loss, years long gone, in some distant naval conflict. Only her closest confidants knew that Mr Aaron Bessovitch had leaned too far over the rail of the Dover to Calais packet ship whilst inebriated. Tragic, possibly, but not of great value to the Empire.
Catherine Weatherhead looked on her landlady as a safe harbour, and thanked God (with whom she was not overly familiar) for guiding her to Mrs Bessovitch’s lodgings in Southwark.
“Madame Rostov, she was a success?”
Mrs Bessovitch clattered at the sink, her accent thicker than usual. Catherine knew that she was concerned.
“I… no, it all went well. At first.”
“These ladies, they had their doubts about you?”
“It isn’t that. I’d done the usual work – picked up details on them from the local shops as myself, gossiped a little. You know.”
That part had gone smoothly. It had been easy to check the local cemetery and see that Margaret Carlton’s grave was untended. For backup, she had a rumour about the family’s time before they came to Islington, and a tale from a garrulous greengrocer. Catherine knew how to read people, without needing her unreliable gift. The Aether did not need to stir itself to satisfy most séance goers.
“So… what is matter?” The landlady peered at a smudged glass, wiping it with her cloth.
“Something… something reminded me of the past, that is all. It’s nothing.”
“Da. Nothing, that is always frightening.”
They shared a smile.
“I’ll tell you some time, Mrs B. For the moment, I should rest.”
“No dinner?”
“Later, if I may.”
Catherine trudged up the stairs, her feet sore. Her imposture as Madame Rostov, the psychic from somewhere vague in Eastern Europe, involved far too much walking. Hansoms were expensive, on the little she had made so far, and she had always to make sure she wasn’t observed in her transition between roles. She had learned far more than she wanted about the streets of London in her first six months. More comfortable boots would have to be her next major purchase.
Her bedroom on the first floor was too tidy. Mrs Bessovitch’s work, but she could hardly complain. The rent was a pittance, nor were there any other lodgers.
“It is my home,” the landlady said when Catherine finally dared to query her. “If I wish company, I let my rooms. You are company. So…”
In the ancient, creaking wardrobe hung Mrs Bessovitch’s cast-offs, ideal for Madame Rostov. Furs – not grand, even slightly moth-eaten, but with the right look for the part. Old-fashioned clothes, easily tacked (by the landlady) to approximate Catherine’s leaner figure.
It had been her landlady’s idea, in a sense. Their first meeting was on a stormy January morning, and Catherine, after a winter struggling in the capital, needed shelter. Her savings were low, and previous lodgings had been unsafe, plagued by drunken fights. Then she had seen a notice in the paper. Quiet room available. Only single lady.
She walked to the address in Southwark, and presented herself. With her black hair wild and her face scrubbed red by the wind, Mrs Bessovitch approved.
“You look like good Russian woman,” she said as she made them a pot of tea. “I will like you.”
“The room is still available?”
“Da. A young woman, she comes but she is pretty. She smiles too much. I do not think she knows life.”
“And me?”
“You are not so pretty.”
The blunt comment took Catherine by surprise, and she laughed, spilling her tea.
“You see?” said Mrs Bessovitch. “You understand.”
THE PROSTITUTE’S PRICE
by Alan M Clark
Mary Jane Kelly, much the same age as Catherine, but engaged in prostitution for some time and no longer sure of her way out of risk and the streets…
(The Jennifer Weatherhead mentioned below is an impoverished cousin of Catherine, living a very different life)
Mary Jane guided Jennifer across Stepney High Street and into Durham Row, which ran along the northern edge of St. Dunstan’s Church. Trees in the churchyard had taken on yellow fall color, the leaves beautiful beneath an unusually crisp and clear blue sky.
Entering the Ashfield Place footpath to head northward to the coffee shop, Mary Jane noted that Jennifer’s limp had lessened.
“While soliciting, I use the name Ginger. If you would, please use my true name only when we’re alone. You should find a name to use other than your own, one that feels comfortable.”
“I’ll think about what that might be,” Jennifer said. “My friends call me Jennie.”
Mary Jane considered the last statement an invitation.
She saw a man with red side whiskers and mustache moving toward them among the other pedestrians ahead. With the warm color of his whiskers and the hair that poked out from beneath his brown bowler, he stood out, even at a distance.
Brevard!
Her heart beat quickened, and a tingling at the back of her neck told her to hide. She didn’t want to frighten Jennie.
“Look at this hat,” Mary Jane said, taking Miss Weatherhead by the arm and tugging her into the recessed doorway of a Milliner’s shop. “Now where is it?”
Though clearly surprised by the sudden deviation, Jennie seemed willing to concentrate on the hats displayed in the window. “Which one?” she asked. “They’re all quite beautiful.”
Mary Jane hadn’t got a good look at the man, and she didn’t think he’d seen her.
Jennie stands out too far! He might recognize her.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Mary Jane said. “I have a rock in my boot. Would you steady me?” She offered her left hand.
Jennie took it and turned toward her.
Good. Now she faced completely away from the approaching man and had her face down.
Mary Jane crouched and pretended to attend to her foot with her right hand beneath the cover of her skirts. Then she realized that if the man had noticed her, crouched down as she was might prove her undoing, since she would not be able to sprint away quickly. She gathered in her hand the hems of her skirts in case she did have to make a dash for it.
The fellow walked by, taking no notice of the women in the Milliner’s shop doorway.
He was not Stuart Brevard, yet she had felt the return of the fear from a month earlier, and regretted taking a more casual view of the threat he posed.
Mary Jane realized she’d been holding her breath. With relief, she took a gulp of air.
Remaining in her crouch for a few moments to compose herself, she leaned out of the recess to watch the man walktoward the pretty trees of the churchyard and turn eastward into Durham Row.
“Did you remove the stone?” Jennie asked somewhat impatiently.
“Oh…yes,” Mary Jane said, standing.
The two women continued up Ashfield Place.
Mary Jane dreaded a possible future in which Stuart Brevard tracked her to her new lodgings in Globe Road, an eventuality that seemed a matter of time. She’d gone to live with Joseph Fleming initially to confuse her trail and gain some male protection. Persuading him to help her recover the necklace was taking more time than she’d anticipated. If Stuart Brevard found her in Globe Road before Fleming agreed to help, and she had to move again, she might lose her chance to get the necklace altogether.
AFTER-NOTE: As for the men within these books, some intend to be kind and some choose to be cruel. Many are no more sure of what they are, and what they will become, than Catherine and Mary Jane.
The only figure in both novels who might be said to have no doubts about himself is, as you might guess, Mr Edwin Dry, the Deptford Assassin. To Catherine Weatherhead he is the killer in the bowler hat who haunts her visions; to Mary Jane Kelly he is the ‘black-eyed man’ who is a terrible threat and an opportunity at the same time…
The novels are now available in Kindle and paperback:
Once again we’re part of this fun tour – sixteen horror-y writers this year, sharing posts, offering neat stuff and so on. Do have a look round the sites involved – link below. We’ll have some more October Frights books news and guest posts on here over the next week…
It’s the fashion these days, to take fairy tales and the fae right back to their very earliest roots, by which I mean they tend to be a nasty, spiteful bunch and not something you’d ever be happy to encounter. Here, however, we harken back to the days when children’s authors presented a much kinder, more pleasant view of the little people. I certainly feel there’s room for both.
