Peter Bird's Blog: The Shadow of Memories Forgotten

So, in the absence of influential friends in high places, desirable / attractive genetics, oh, and yes, talent, I have decided to blow a raspberry at the publishing industry and just write and produce material that I think is of good quality, and will appeal to the particular genre that I am writing within.
I am not big on selling myself to prospective publishers, and I no longer care what book publishers think of my work. I have read enough rubbish that masquerades as published fiction of late to know that my material can go toe to toe with the best of them. I am specifically referring to ghost fiction.
When was the last time you read a good ghost story? I can name a few, and that is about all. Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House still sticks in my mind, as does Henry James' The Turn of the Screw , and really nothing much else.
In my novel In the Company of Ghosts, I deliberately attempted to create a scary story. I wanted to unnerve the reader, and make them feel queasy with dread. I say "attempted" because I really don't think I succeeded terribly well. One thing I discovered is that it is not easy to write stuff that actually scares you. Henry James' novel probably comes closest, but even that story has few intense moments of genuine eeriness. I wanted to make the reader really feel uncomfortable reading this book, and by that I mean unsettling, because to be unsettled in a good book can be a wonderful experience.
I think it has is scary moments, but I admit, it falls short (like just about every other ghost story) in the scare factor.

Hey, but I could be wrong.
I certainly would love to hear what you think of it.

After falling down the stairs of Yarberry House, the old, dilapidated building that the community radio station transmits from and landing himself in a coma, Tom Pate returns one month later to continue his show.

His doctor told him he may experience strange things during this time of recovery; hear voices and see things that aren't really there.

But something IS there in Yarberry House, and he captures it on camera just to prove it. It's a girl, barely eight years old, walking aimlessly from room to room looking for her mother.

Tom enlists the help of an eccentric local ghost hunter and his sidekick, and what they quickly discover is there are two ghosts in the house.

Tom decides to investigate, and what he uncovers along the way is a terrible true story of brutal cold blooded murder and injustice, as the victim's sister, frail and aged Deidre, is wrongly framed and imprisoned for the murder. Tom learns she is spending her last days in a nursing home in town.

Tom decides he needs to right this injustice by finding the evidence that will clear Deidre's name, and in so doing, uncover the real killer.

Little does he know the killer is closer to him than he knows...

Finally managed to wing a spare few days for myself and get this collection of stories together. Stories from my uni days. A bit raw, a bit ragged, but still quite good I think.
A couple of humorous Sci fi pieces, one in loving a creature called a slub, a small furry like thing that was the presiden's actual slub which was stolen and this space trucker or "strucker" has been caught right in the middle of an intergalactic incident by trying to get the slub back.

Another story features a cat and his rat offsider scouring the desert for a lost child.

There's also a story about Houdini. During his final act he is visited by a ghost.

Available from Amazon in paperback and Kindle.