"I'm not sure what led me to take up a pen and record these days, but from the moment I woke in the small hours of this morning, or perhaps earlier...something has urged me to sit at the table and write."

As we count down to Christmas, the final story spotlight is on novella 'Alone', a gothic supernatural mystery.

Behind the Story
At the time I began 'Alone', I was working on what was then planned to be my second novel following 'Those Crimes of Passion'. Alongside this, I wrote an early draft of 'The Ghost Train' and soon became inspired to work on another side project - a festive ghost story.

The tradition of ghost stories at Christmas has never lost its appeal. Nor has the puzzle of a crime mystery to solve during the season. For these two genres to flourish at this time makes for beautiful juxtaposition and harks back to the origins of our winter festival.

This was also a time when I was struggling with my mental health. A decade ago, it was still something we didn't really talk about. Hearing a glib "cheer up, it's Christmas, you should be happy" can become tiresome. Christmas for many can be difficult - old wounds can so easily open and current troubles feel deeper at a time celebrating love and family, friendship and community. These became key themes I wanted to explore.

Gothic fiction is a marvellous canvas wih which to explore a troubled mind - with its shadows and suspense, its atmosphere and isolation. Inspired by works of Daphne du Maurier and Agatha Christie, as well as ghost stories and supernatural horror in film, I laced these genres together, structured around Adventide, weaving a 'psychological jigsaw puzzle' in epistolary style.

The resulting novella remains a favourite amongst my own stories, released as my second book on Winter Solstice in 2014. Join Jessica as she revisits the past, isolated in an old house in the Welsh mountains, haunted by memories and perhaps something more.

Burying our secrets does not make them forgotten...

“Through the dilapidated village and crawling up into the beacons, towards the spectre that soon loomed on the hill.”

All things must end.

Recovering from a recent accident and faced with the prospect of spending another Christmas alone, Jessica accepts the invitation of an old flame to spend Christmas with him and his aged aunt at his manor house in the midst of the Brecon Beacons.

Feeling her arrival is unwelcome, Jessica awaits her reunion with a face from the past, while a snowstorm postpones his arrival and renders her trapped within the house. Behind the silence, something dark is lurking.

Left with little choice, Jessica finds she must face the secrets the old house hides. Yet what she may come to learn is that nothing haunts us more than the secrets of our own pasts, and that burying them does not make them forgotten.

“I remembered nothing else but that twinkling music, as I lay in a stupor on the ground having never felt so much fear at not being alone.”

Read the opening scene.

“Alone” is available as a standalone in ebook and paperback or as part of "Whispers from the Dead of Night - The Deluxe Collection" in ebook, paperback and hardcover.

Order "Alone"
Order "Whispers from the Dead of Night - The Deluxe Collection"

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