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Votive Offerings
Four ‘all new’ long stories (or novelettes) imbued with the mystery and otherworldliness of place and of landscape – strange, secret, mystical and ancient.
In “Roman Masks” by Mark Valentine art college teachers and their students in north west England invoke, through strange ritual, ancient gods and terrible dark forces at a coastal temple ruin.
John Howard’s weirdly enigmatic “Desire Path” takes the unwary reader along pathways long forgotten and thought lost ~ but what if you could walk along ways that no longer exist?
“Figures in a Landscape” by Peter Bell finds its heroine seeking a lost (or possibly mythic) Welsh hill figure and discovering the seemingly harmless to be anything but.
Colin Insole’s “The April Rainers” is a tale of the re-emergence of something old, powerful and malevolent, and the story of the centuries-old fellowship pledged to protect the land and keep it safe from the terror.
In “Roman Masks” by Mark Valentine art college teachers and their students in north west England invoke, through strange ritual, ancient gods and terrible dark forces at a coastal temple ruin.
John Howard’s weirdly enigmatic “Desire Path” takes the unwary reader along pathways long forgotten and thought lost ~ but what if you could walk along ways that no longer exist?
“Figures in a Landscape” by Peter Bell finds its heroine seeking a lost (or possibly mythic) Welsh hill figure and discovering the seemingly harmless to be anything but.
Colin Insole’s “The April Rainers” is a tale of the re-emergence of something old, powerful and malevolent, and the story of the centuries-old fellowship pledged to protect the land and keep it safe from the terror.
- GenresFiction
117 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2026
5 people want to read
About the author
Mark Valentine
270 books137 followersMark Valentine is an English author, biographer and editor.
Valentine’s short stories have been published by a number of small presses and in anthologies since the 1980s, and the exploits of his series character, "The Connoisseur", an occult detective, were published as The Collected Connoisseur in 2010.
As a biographer, Valentine has published a life of Arthur Machen in 1985 (Seren Press), and a study of Sarban, Time, A Falconer (Tartarus Press), is published in 2010. He has also written numerous articles for the Book and Magazine Collector magazine, and introductions for various books, including editions of work by Walter de la Mare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Saki, J. Meade Falkner and others.
Valentine also edits Wormwood (Tartarus Press), a journal dedicated to fantastic, supernatural and decadent literature, and has also edited anthologies, including The Werewolf Pack (Wordsworth, 2008) and The Black Veil (Wordsworth, 2008).
Valentine’s short stories have been published by a number of small presses and in anthologies since the 1980s, and the exploits of his series character, "The Connoisseur", an occult detective, were published as The Collected Connoisseur in 2010.
As a biographer, Valentine has published a life of Arthur Machen in 1985 (Seren Press), and a study of Sarban, Time, A Falconer (Tartarus Press), is published in 2010. He has also written numerous articles for the Book and Magazine Collector magazine, and introductions for various books, including editions of work by Walter de la Mare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Saki, J. Meade Falkner and others.
Valentine also edits Wormwood (Tartarus Press), a journal dedicated to fantastic, supernatural and decadent literature, and has also edited anthologies, including The Werewolf Pack (Wordsworth, 2008) and The Black Veil (Wordsworth, 2008).
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 28, 2026
The first two stories were okay but not really my cup of tea: Mark Valentine's Roman Masks was at points over-explaining things, and the climax was underwhelming, while John Howard's Desire Path was way too hazy and vague (in a Hill of Dreams way) for me. The second half of the book was much more to my tastes: Peter Bell's Figures in a Landscape was much more engaging, plot-wise, focusing on the investigative aspects of the plot (even though the ending was a bit underwhelming). Colin Insole's The April Rainers was by far my favourite story in this collection (and could well be the best he has ever written); with a directness and clear-headedness (bordering on the encyclopedic/gazetteery, and I mean it in the best of ways) that I haven't really connected with the author, the folklore, landscape and dark story of a region is brought to life, offering as also a tarot alternative that I crave to see materialized.
Physically the book is impressive, as is the dust-jacket art by Paul Lowe. My only complaint has to do with the small font Sarob is using in all its books.
Physically the book is impressive, as is the dust-jacket art by Paul Lowe. My only complaint has to do with the small font Sarob is using in all its books.
Displaying 1 of 1 review