What do you think?
Rate this book
Eliot & O'Hare #1
A Box Full of Ashes
Three misfits, three smoke breaks and one series of extraordinary events.
An angel appears on Brighton beach, a hospital patient bursts into flames in Plymouth and a goth spontaneously combusts in a churchyard in Sidmouth; it’s all in a day’s work for stage magician and freelance paranormal investigator Francis Eliot. For pathologist Camilla O’Hare it’s nothing short of lunacy, particularly when one of the victims’ bodies disappears from the morgue in the length of time it takes her to answer the phone.
When the two of them join forces to figure out what’s really going on behind the sudden rash of spontaneous human combustions taking the West Country by storm, neither can predict just how weird things are about to get. A missing cat, a dog-eared copy of Dracula, a guitar case full of garlic and a priest so turbulent that even Henry II’s drunken knights would think twice – all add up to a hypothesis so extravagantly nuts that nobody wants to come out and say the V-word.
Except at some point you’re going to have to admit the obvious. Especially when the obvious keeps trying to eat you.
This fast-paced British urban fantasy is the first in a brand new series that will delight fans of Bram Stoker, Jonathan Creek and anyone who was ever sceptical about the idea of sparkling vampires.
An angel appears on Brighton beach, a hospital patient bursts into flames in Plymouth and a goth spontaneously combusts in a churchyard in Sidmouth; it’s all in a day’s work for stage magician and freelance paranormal investigator Francis Eliot. For pathologist Camilla O’Hare it’s nothing short of lunacy, particularly when one of the victims’ bodies disappears from the morgue in the length of time it takes her to answer the phone.
When the two of them join forces to figure out what’s really going on behind the sudden rash of spontaneous human combustions taking the West Country by storm, neither can predict just how weird things are about to get. A missing cat, a dog-eared copy of Dracula, a guitar case full of garlic and a priest so turbulent that even Henry II’s drunken knights would think twice – all add up to a hypothesis so extravagantly nuts that nobody wants to come out and say the V-word.
Except at some point you’re going to have to admit the obvious. Especially when the obvious keeps trying to eat you.
This fast-paced British urban fantasy is the first in a brand new series that will delight fans of Bram Stoker, Jonathan Creek and anyone who was ever sceptical about the idea of sparkling vampires.
- GenresFantasy
228 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 13, 2015
About the author
Anna Roberts
10 books11 followersAnna Roberts was born and grew up on the Isle of Wight, a small island of disproportionate historical interest and alumni such as Keats, Tennyson and Algernon Charles Swinburne. This rarefied literary atmosphere made little impression but did leave her with a deep and lasting antipathy to the poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Semi-educated at Kings College London, Anna Roberts then returned to the Isle of Wight, where she now lists her hobbies as cat-wrangling, faking séances and trying to sound interesting in potted author biographies.
Her fascination with the paranormal and the probably-not-that-supernatural stems from childhood, when she would sit far too close to the television whenever Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World was on.
Semi-educated at Kings College London, Anna Roberts then returned to the Isle of Wight, where she now lists her hobbies as cat-wrangling, faking séances and trying to sound interesting in potted author biographies.
Her fascination with the paranormal and the probably-not-that-supernatural stems from childhood, when she would sit far too close to the television whenever Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World was on.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 30, 2016
Self-disclosure: I haven't read all the Fifty Shades parodies, but what I did made me laugh hard enough to endanger my undergarments. Seriously, I would probably read her if she parodied the phone book (although the yellow pages are parody all by themselves, just not funny.)
I have previously recommended Summerland and Paris Green in this forum, and stand by my reviews and recs. but this writer is too talented to be pigeonholed by genre. A Box Full of Ashes isn't quite horror, even though it contains the horrifying. I'd eat my own liver, but she's so damn good you can't be evilly envious, all you can do is wait not so patiently for what she writes.
A Box Full of Ashes is simply the most original and engaging take on vampires I have read since, well, forever, because I am old and cranky and avoid the V word like the plague. Sparkly vampires indeed. Intelligent, funny and yeah, pretty goddamn scary under all the rational skeptical thinking that takes place, and when I got to the last page, tried to page again and got Kindle's Before You Go, I nearly cried.
I wade through a truckload of crap to find new writers. I give four stars infrequently and five stars even more rarely, I am terribly biased toward writers whose prose makes me fall in love and will read damn near anything they write. I'm glad I fell in love with Anna Roberts prose a few years back and now I am whining and sniffling and giving tragic looks for more.
I have previously recommended Summerland and Paris Green in this forum, and stand by my reviews and recs. but this writer is too talented to be pigeonholed by genre. A Box Full of Ashes isn't quite horror, even though it contains the horrifying. I'd eat my own liver, but she's so damn good you can't be evilly envious, all you can do is wait not so patiently for what she writes.
A Box Full of Ashes is simply the most original and engaging take on vampires I have read since, well, forever, because I am old and cranky and avoid the V word like the plague. Sparkly vampires indeed. Intelligent, funny and yeah, pretty goddamn scary under all the rational skeptical thinking that takes place, and when I got to the last page, tried to page again and got Kindle's Before You Go, I nearly cried.
I wade through a truckload of crap to find new writers. I give four stars infrequently and five stars even more rarely, I am terribly biased toward writers whose prose makes me fall in love and will read damn near anything they write. I'm glad I fell in love with Anna Roberts prose a few years back and now I am whining and sniffling and giving tragic looks for more.
Displaying 1 of 1 review