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Terror Tales of the West Country
The West Country. England’s mystical heart. Hill-forts, ancient circles. Blessed by age-old powers, sanctified in blood. Where woods and pools stir to whispered summonings, forbidden names are carved in rock, and rebels died en masse, hanged and butchered, their gore-dabbled ghosts wandering vengeful in the rural night …
- GenresHorror
409 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 27, 2022
9 people are currently reading
12 people want to read
About the author
Paul Finch
206 books457 followersPaul Finch is a former cop and journalist, now full-time writer. Having originally written for the television series THE BILL plus children's animation and DOCTOR WHO audio dramas, he went on to write horror, but is now best known for his crime / thriller fiction.
He won the British Fantasy Award twice and the International Horror Guild Award, but since then has written two parallel series of hard-hitting crime novels, the Heck and the Lucy Clayburn novels, of which three titles have become best-sellers.
Paul lives in Wigan, Lancashire, UK with his wife and children.
He won the British Fantasy Award twice and the International Horror Guild Award, but since then has written two parallel series of hard-hitting crime novels, the Heck and the Lucy Clayburn novels, of which three titles have become best-sellers.
Paul lives in Wigan, Lancashire, UK with his wife and children.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 8, 2024
One unique selling point of the Terror Tales anthology series is that alternating with the stories are mini essays about various local legends. They’re entertaining in their own right—which means it’s a friggin’ shame that they’re always italicized! I can’t stand reading blocks of slanted text, and these are whole pages of it. Luckily mine was an ebook (first time I’ve said that!) and I could adjust the font enough that it wasn’t too bad. But it’s the one flaw in this otherwise awesome series.
Enough bitchin’.
My favorites of these nonfiction essays:
1) And Then There Was One is about the island Agatha Christie used for her seminal (horror-esque, Finch argues, and I’d agree) mystery-thriller Ten Little Raregenuineinstanceofreasonablecensorings.
2) Hounds of Hell is about the folkloric inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own seminal (horror-esque, nobody disputes) mystery-thriller and his best Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. Finch tells us that the legend was actually about more than one hell hound—try about a pack of ‘em. And other beasts, to boot. Hey, how good does The Hounds of the Baskervilles sound? One letter pluralizing one word is enough to stagger the imagination! (Hollywood, get on it. Um. You know what, given the state you’re in, forget it. Go sober up, or go backpacking through Europe to find yourself.
3) Lonesome Roads is about phantom hitchhikers—one of my very favorite urban legends. “The Hairy Hands of Dartmoor” is given the spotlight. (Fear on 4 had a great episode called just that!)
Overall, I feel the same way about this anthology as I do most: pretty okay. Maybe a lower good to bad ratio than with other Terror Tales. There were only one or two that I immediately looked forward to revisiting. So not the best volume, for me, personally. Kind of weirdly, the next Terror Tales book is slated to be Terror Tales of the Mediterranean. Interesting. All that said: recommended. Here are my knee-jerk reactions to each story:
The Darkness Below - Interesting premise (mom and dad take their kids to the cave-one of the kids seems alien afterwards.) Had never heard of Cheddar Gorge, that I can remember. Thought it sounded like the name of a drag queen. Lo and behold… it is. Killer ending!
Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear - Lisa Tuttle’s name is very familiar to me and I’m sure I must have read some of her stuff before. She always pops up in these types of anthologies. I love the premise (house-hunting couple spots their idyllic country home but it disappears-years later, now divorced, they find it) and was thinking “gee, I gotta find some more Tuttle.” Until I reached the unsatisfying conclusion. Maybe it’s a one-off wimpy ending: must investigate.
Chalk and Flint - In this tale Naive Plain Jane is romanced by Prince Red Flags Galore. At one point he’s berating and she wonders why she can’t say: “I don’t want to be with a man who would call a woman a slut.” Never mind the fact that the woman in question was extremely cruel to Jane and that Prince was probably just calling a spade a spade, that’s what she takes issue with? Not with his insanely controlling behavior? Author’s own naïveté or is the character that exceedingly pathetic? Got some Yellow Wallpaper vibes: is this chick really seeing things or is she nuts? Regardless, this one ain’t my cup of tea. The story drags whenever the protagonist is exploring the woods and the ending is lame. Shame because I love the Brigadoonish trope.
Epiphyte - Like Tuttle, Thana Niveau’s name is familiar to me and also like Tuttle I must have read some of her stuff, just not the story that made me want to look for more. If that makes sense. This story is not that story either. I like the writing but the story is just a mystifyingly big fat zero. It had potential (boy meets girl-they explore Bronze Age settlement with weird flowers) but it quickly goes exactly where expected, where so many stories have gone before (weird flowers consume girl-the end.)
[By this point I’m starting to lose faith in this anthology. Terror Tales is my favorite horror anthology series since Black Books of Horror but I’m stumped with the last two. Annoyed, actually, with the last one. Niveau’s story seemed rushed or something. Maybe she got bored. And the story before that could have been edited into a better story, provided the author reworked the ending.]
In the Land of Thunder - A journalist investigates his family history and learns an ancestor of his may have been an especially cruel prison governor. Surely any spirits of the dead prisoners wouldn’t blame him for anything. Best thing I took away from this story was learning about American prisoners in England and how shabbily they were treated, and how their own government betrayed them. Surely nothing like that would happen today…! Surely! When I started this story I thought “now this is more like it” but the mystery-horror gave way to action-horror and my interest waned.
Unrecovered - Ugh. I was looking forward to Stephen Volk’s contribution but this just didn’t do it for me, at all. I think it’s because of the context and expectation. I was expecting a horror story. Some kind of dark fiction. This is more like one of those bittersweet war episodes of Twilight Zone. The narrator is a “cool” archaeologist with breast cancer working a dig with some vets traumatized by war. It’s very, very long. If I like the narrator’s voice it wouldn’t have been so irksome but I didn’t and it was. This is not shaping up to be my favorites Terror Tales!
Gwen - Another recovering alcoholic, Ed, meets a mermaid. Nothing to get too excited about here, unless predatory mermaids are new to you. Other than that, not much to say. I’d try more from this author, though—maybe there were extenuating circumstances with this one or maybe he has a thing for mermaids that he’s now gotten out of his system.
[Really hoping the remaining stories are all home runs at the point!]
Watcher in the Skies - 8 months after finishing this book I discovered I plum forgot to leave a comment on this story. That doesn’t bode well, does it? Maybe my lack of a comment was a comment. Anyway, cool idea: freelance writer visits a UFO town that isn’t famous and meets a mysterious woman. The problems are 1) the main character: he’s a complete cipher, he’s crap at investigating, and when the plot develops around him he barely reacts. Problem 2) everything is so vague—is it aliens? Is the whole town in on it? This is a story that would have benefited from feedback.
Bullbeggar Walk - Paul Finch never fails to entertain. This story is no exception. Kind of has a personal point of interest to me (locals v. outsiders.) It isn’t his best story but it’s really good. Take this with a grain of salt, though, as I am a Finchhead.
The Pale Man - Never heard of Andy Briggs. This is his only short story listed on ISFDB. However, it looks like he’s had some horror experience as a screenwriter. The Pale Man is a tea room in the West Country, and much more, where our protagonists—one’s helping the other escape an abusive relationship—find themselves. When a dense mist rolls away they see out of the window one of those eerie hill figures outlined in chalk. You know, like that famous one of a really hung baseball player. Things, naturally, take a nasty turn. A rather good nasty turn, for us readers; not so much for the stars of the show. I was pleasantly surprised with this one. The ending would have been punchier pared down, but it’s fun as-is. The writer was playing with expectations a bit. Like this old riddle:
A father and son get in a car crash and are rushed to the hospital. The father dies. The boy is taken to the operating room and the surgeon says, “I can’t operate on this boy, because he’s my son.”
Maybe because I myself bat for the other team, but my mind was already working in a certain direction. The twist still got me, though. Not a perfect story but I’d definitely read more from Briggs. (Re: the name Briggs, I kept thinking of the TNG episode Night Terrors when the dying captain hisses, “Briggs! And his men!” But now I look it up it’s actually “Brink.” Who cares, huh? Why the hell am I writing this?) Good job, Briggs! On the strength of this story I’ll read your comic, Ritual.
Little Down Barton - After Evan’s wife leaves him he returns home to the family farm and finds you can’t outrun your past. Pleasantly surprised by this one. Lizzie Fry has a story to tell, she gets in and gets out. The descriptions of farm life during the mad cow craze are harrowing and really bring home how insanely different one’s perspective on life and nature and death and hardship must be when raised on a farm. As a human, not as a sheep or something. I’m pretty sure there’s not much of a philosophical divide between farm sheep and town sheep. The milieu is different, the monster unique, the angst real—not bad at all.
Certain Death for a Known Person - Now, Duffy is a familiar name. And I like Duffy. The only stories of his I didn’t care for much had more to do with my own pet peeves than anything else. (One is far and away his most famous story, that one had southern American dialects; the other had Nazi stuff.) This effortless story felt like sitting in a comfy chair. I appreciated how I didn’t know where it was going until I did, and from them on it was dread central.
Knyfesmyth's Steps - This story opens with the disappointing pronouncement that there will be ‘No inflatable dicks, no cock lollipops and no knob straws.’ Well! I never. And in a Terror Tales book, too. I churlishly flung my own cock lollipop at the nearest librarian and read on. So: what do you get when a slightly horror-themed bachelorette party goes on a ghost tour? From the climax on everything’s kind of dreamy and vague, purposely, I assume, but it’s hard to picture without seeming Langoliers-ending silly. Still, it’s a fun little story with a nice twist. I’d read another AK Benedict. Bonus: TIL about the Christmas Steps. As a Yank it’s fun learning about this kind of thing.
Soon, the Darkness- Probably the story I was most looking forward to after Paul Finch’s. I’m a big fan of Mr. Probert. Some of his stuff can be campy, which I like, but he can also tell straight horror stories. This is the latter. A doctor is sent as a sub to a clinic in the middle of nowhere. Unluckily for him there’s a certain traditional local ritual happening and he’s asked to take part. Was Probert once a doctor? A lot of the horror comes from the nasty descriptions of the ills of the patients, and Probert sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. More so than the average story set in a clinic or hospital. Almost Lovecraftian folk horror, this, I think. Great story with a creepy ending. I’m happy to say this volume ends on a high note.
Enough bitchin’.
My favorites of these nonfiction essays:
1) And Then There Was One is about the island Agatha Christie used for her seminal (horror-esque, Finch argues, and I’d agree) mystery-thriller Ten Little Raregenuineinstanceofreasonablecensorings.
2) Hounds of Hell is about the folkloric inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own seminal (horror-esque, nobody disputes) mystery-thriller and his best Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. Finch tells us that the legend was actually about more than one hell hound—try about a pack of ‘em. And other beasts, to boot. Hey, how good does The Hounds of the Baskervilles sound? One letter pluralizing one word is enough to stagger the imagination! (Hollywood, get on it. Um. You know what, given the state you’re in, forget it. Go sober up, or go backpacking through Europe to find yourself.
3) Lonesome Roads is about phantom hitchhikers—one of my very favorite urban legends. “The Hairy Hands of Dartmoor” is given the spotlight. (Fear on 4 had a great episode called just that!)
Overall, I feel the same way about this anthology as I do most: pretty okay. Maybe a lower good to bad ratio than with other Terror Tales. There were only one or two that I immediately looked forward to revisiting. So not the best volume, for me, personally. Kind of weirdly, the next Terror Tales book is slated to be Terror Tales of the Mediterranean. Interesting. All that said: recommended. Here are my knee-jerk reactions to each story:
The Darkness Below - Interesting premise (mom and dad take their kids to the cave-one of the kids seems alien afterwards.) Had never heard of Cheddar Gorge, that I can remember. Thought it sounded like the name of a drag queen. Lo and behold… it is. Killer ending!
Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear - Lisa Tuttle’s name is very familiar to me and I’m sure I must have read some of her stuff before. She always pops up in these types of anthologies. I love the premise (house-hunting couple spots their idyllic country home but it disappears-years later, now divorced, they find it) and was thinking “gee, I gotta find some more Tuttle.” Until I reached the unsatisfying conclusion. Maybe it’s a one-off wimpy ending: must investigate.
Chalk and Flint - In this tale Naive Plain Jane is romanced by Prince Red Flags Galore. At one point he’s berating and she wonders why she can’t say: “I don’t want to be with a man who would call a woman a slut.” Never mind the fact that the woman in question was extremely cruel to Jane and that Prince was probably just calling a spade a spade, that’s what she takes issue with? Not with his insanely controlling behavior? Author’s own naïveté or is the character that exceedingly pathetic? Got some Yellow Wallpaper vibes: is this chick really seeing things or is she nuts? Regardless, this one ain’t my cup of tea. The story drags whenever the protagonist is exploring the woods and the ending is lame. Shame because I love the Brigadoonish trope.
Epiphyte - Like Tuttle, Thana Niveau’s name is familiar to me and also like Tuttle I must have read some of her stuff, just not the story that made me want to look for more. If that makes sense. This story is not that story either. I like the writing but the story is just a mystifyingly big fat zero. It had potential (boy meets girl-they explore Bronze Age settlement with weird flowers) but it quickly goes exactly where expected, where so many stories have gone before (weird flowers consume girl-the end.)
[By this point I’m starting to lose faith in this anthology. Terror Tales is my favorite horror anthology series since Black Books of Horror but I’m stumped with the last two. Annoyed, actually, with the last one. Niveau’s story seemed rushed or something. Maybe she got bored. And the story before that could have been edited into a better story, provided the author reworked the ending.]
In the Land of Thunder - A journalist investigates his family history and learns an ancestor of his may have been an especially cruel prison governor. Surely any spirits of the dead prisoners wouldn’t blame him for anything. Best thing I took away from this story was learning about American prisoners in England and how shabbily they were treated, and how their own government betrayed them. Surely nothing like that would happen today…! Surely! When I started this story I thought “now this is more like it” but the mystery-horror gave way to action-horror and my interest waned.
Unrecovered - Ugh. I was looking forward to Stephen Volk’s contribution but this just didn’t do it for me, at all. I think it’s because of the context and expectation. I was expecting a horror story. Some kind of dark fiction. This is more like one of those bittersweet war episodes of Twilight Zone. The narrator is a “cool” archaeologist with breast cancer working a dig with some vets traumatized by war. It’s very, very long. If I like the narrator’s voice it wouldn’t have been so irksome but I didn’t and it was. This is not shaping up to be my favorites Terror Tales!
Gwen - Another recovering alcoholic, Ed, meets a mermaid. Nothing to get too excited about here, unless predatory mermaids are new to you. Other than that, not much to say. I’d try more from this author, though—maybe there were extenuating circumstances with this one or maybe he has a thing for mermaids that he’s now gotten out of his system.
[Really hoping the remaining stories are all home runs at the point!]
Watcher in the Skies - 8 months after finishing this book I discovered I plum forgot to leave a comment on this story. That doesn’t bode well, does it? Maybe my lack of a comment was a comment. Anyway, cool idea: freelance writer visits a UFO town that isn’t famous and meets a mysterious woman. The problems are 1) the main character: he’s a complete cipher, he’s crap at investigating, and when the plot develops around him he barely reacts. Problem 2) everything is so vague—is it aliens? Is the whole town in on it? This is a story that would have benefited from feedback.
Bullbeggar Walk - Paul Finch never fails to entertain. This story is no exception. Kind of has a personal point of interest to me (locals v. outsiders.) It isn’t his best story but it’s really good. Take this with a grain of salt, though, as I am a Finchhead.
The Pale Man - Never heard of Andy Briggs. This is his only short story listed on ISFDB. However, it looks like he’s had some horror experience as a screenwriter. The Pale Man is a tea room in the West Country, and much more, where our protagonists—one’s helping the other escape an abusive relationship—find themselves. When a dense mist rolls away they see out of the window one of those eerie hill figures outlined in chalk. You know, like that famous one of a really hung baseball player. Things, naturally, take a nasty turn. A rather good nasty turn, for us readers; not so much for the stars of the show. I was pleasantly surprised with this one. The ending would have been punchier pared down, but it’s fun as-is. The writer was playing with expectations a bit. Like this old riddle:
A father and son get in a car crash and are rushed to the hospital. The father dies. The boy is taken to the operating room and the surgeon says, “I can’t operate on this boy, because he’s my son.”
Maybe because I myself bat for the other team, but my mind was already working in a certain direction. The twist still got me, though. Not a perfect story but I’d definitely read more from Briggs. (Re: the name Briggs, I kept thinking of the TNG episode Night Terrors when the dying captain hisses, “Briggs! And his men!” But now I look it up it’s actually “Brink.” Who cares, huh? Why the hell am I writing this?) Good job, Briggs! On the strength of this story I’ll read your comic, Ritual.
Little Down Barton - After Evan’s wife leaves him he returns home to the family farm and finds you can’t outrun your past. Pleasantly surprised by this one. Lizzie Fry has a story to tell, she gets in and gets out. The descriptions of farm life during the mad cow craze are harrowing and really bring home how insanely different one’s perspective on life and nature and death and hardship must be when raised on a farm. As a human, not as a sheep or something. I’m pretty sure there’s not much of a philosophical divide between farm sheep and town sheep. The milieu is different, the monster unique, the angst real—not bad at all.
Certain Death for a Known Person - Now, Duffy is a familiar name. And I like Duffy. The only stories of his I didn’t care for much had more to do with my own pet peeves than anything else. (One is far and away his most famous story, that one had southern American dialects; the other had Nazi stuff.) This effortless story felt like sitting in a comfy chair. I appreciated how I didn’t know where it was going until I did, and from them on it was dread central.
Knyfesmyth's Steps - This story opens with the disappointing pronouncement that there will be ‘No inflatable dicks, no cock lollipops and no knob straws.’ Well! I never. And in a Terror Tales book, too. I churlishly flung my own cock lollipop at the nearest librarian and read on. So: what do you get when a slightly horror-themed bachelorette party goes on a ghost tour? From the climax on everything’s kind of dreamy and vague, purposely, I assume, but it’s hard to picture without seeming Langoliers-ending silly. Still, it’s a fun little story with a nice twist. I’d read another AK Benedict. Bonus: TIL about the Christmas Steps. As a Yank it’s fun learning about this kind of thing.
Soon, the Darkness- Probably the story I was most looking forward to after Paul Finch’s. I’m a big fan of Mr. Probert. Some of his stuff can be campy, which I like, but he can also tell straight horror stories. This is the latter. A doctor is sent as a sub to a clinic in the middle of nowhere. Unluckily for him there’s a certain traditional local ritual happening and he’s asked to take part. Was Probert once a doctor? A lot of the horror comes from the nasty descriptions of the ills of the patients, and Probert sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. More so than the average story set in a clinic or hospital. Almost Lovecraftian folk horror, this, I think. Great story with a creepy ending. I’m happy to say this volume ends on a high note.
February 5, 2023
‘Terror Tales of the West Country’ is the latest in the ‘Terror Tales’ series from Telos Publishing. Each book is devoted to a region of the United Kingdom and features supernatural stories interspersed with essays about real life strange occurrences in the relevant locality. They’re all good but I come from the west country and still live there so ‘Terror Tales of the West Country’ strikes close to home. It’s all good weird stuff. Here are some of my favourites.
The anthology opens with a story set in Cheddar caves: ‘The Darkness Below’ by Dan Coxon. A father visits the site with his wife and two children and panics when son Luke gets lost. The boy is found again quite soon but seem changed somehow. Did he wander off into some deeper part of the cave network and encounter something strange, something ancient? A solid, atmospheric chiller with good local knowledge.
‘The Woden Jug’ by John Linwood Grant is set in the village of Dundry, near Bristol, which was practically my back yard growing up. A villager opens a jug her father found buried years ago and unleashes a lot of bad luck. A friend gets Justin Margrave involved in the case. He’s a dealer in antiquarian objects and an entertaining protagonist. I learned some local history too, so the story struck a chord.
In ‘Chalk and Flint’ by Sarah Singleton, plain Janice goes online dating and finds Nick, the perfect man. They marry and settle down to wedded bliss but then he turns out not so perfect after all. Meanwhile, Janice has found some ruins in the wood that only seem to appear on certain days. This neatly combines an all too common real-life story with the supernatural.
‘Epiphyte’ by Thana Niveau is original in the sense that the menace is not ancient gods or the usual suspects of weird fiction but rather some odd flora growing in a remote Devon woodland and on an ancient site. Well done.
‘Unrecovered’ by Stephen Volk has traumatised ex-soldiers volunteering on an archaeological dig as part of their therapy, excavating Saxon warriors from long ago. Professional Zoe hits it off with volunteer Luke and the real life relationship is nicely handled. The weird bit doesn’t make any sense, as Zoe admits, but the rest of it was good enough that it didn’t really matter.
Ed of Ilfracombe got dumped by his true love when young and turned to alcohol for consolation. Now he doesn’t even have that as his liver has packed up but ekes out a living as a tourist guide. He’s not a success with the ladies but a beautiful redhead chats him up in the pub. I liked ‘Gwen’ by S.L. Howe because there are many Eds in the world, and they’re okay. Not victims on the news, just unsung plodders getting on with life.
‘Bullbeggar Walk’ by editor Paul Finch pits Devon farm labourer Ned against a London yuppie with a big salary who has just bought a house locally. Ned resents it that house prices are out of reach for young people in the district. His own cottage is worth crazy money but that makes no difference because he won’t ever sell it. Ned challenges the newcomer to take the bullbeggar walk but regrets it later. The creature in this feature is original.
In ‘Certain Death for a Known Person’ author Steve Duffy lures you into a cosy, happy family narrative with his pleasing first-person narrator and then socks you with difficult ethical issues. One of my favourites in the book.
‘Knifesmyth Steps’ by A K Benedict features a hen party haunting on Christmas Steps in Bristol, which used to be known by that more colourful name apparently and can be deadly at night. I enjoyed the story very much, despite having traversed the location on many occasions at all hours of the night without ever being accosted by anything spooky.
‘Terror Tales of the West Country’ may pique people’s interest in the region but is unlikely to lead to an increase in the tourist trade. It’s hard to choose between deadly Devon and scary Somerset but staying home may be the best option! Paul Finch intersperses the fiction with interesting ‘true’ stories of local ghosts and ghoulies. This latest book in the series is as good as the rest and even better if you’re already familiar with the locality, as I do be. Best read with a nice glass of cider and a gert big lump of cheddar cheese, ooh arrgh.
The anthology opens with a story set in Cheddar caves: ‘The Darkness Below’ by Dan Coxon. A father visits the site with his wife and two children and panics when son Luke gets lost. The boy is found again quite soon but seem changed somehow. Did he wander off into some deeper part of the cave network and encounter something strange, something ancient? A solid, atmospheric chiller with good local knowledge.
‘The Woden Jug’ by John Linwood Grant is set in the village of Dundry, near Bristol, which was practically my back yard growing up. A villager opens a jug her father found buried years ago and unleashes a lot of bad luck. A friend gets Justin Margrave involved in the case. He’s a dealer in antiquarian objects and an entertaining protagonist. I learned some local history too, so the story struck a chord.
In ‘Chalk and Flint’ by Sarah Singleton, plain Janice goes online dating and finds Nick, the perfect man. They marry and settle down to wedded bliss but then he turns out not so perfect after all. Meanwhile, Janice has found some ruins in the wood that only seem to appear on certain days. This neatly combines an all too common real-life story with the supernatural.
‘Epiphyte’ by Thana Niveau is original in the sense that the menace is not ancient gods or the usual suspects of weird fiction but rather some odd flora growing in a remote Devon woodland and on an ancient site. Well done.
‘Unrecovered’ by Stephen Volk has traumatised ex-soldiers volunteering on an archaeological dig as part of their therapy, excavating Saxon warriors from long ago. Professional Zoe hits it off with volunteer Luke and the real life relationship is nicely handled. The weird bit doesn’t make any sense, as Zoe admits, but the rest of it was good enough that it didn’t really matter.
Ed of Ilfracombe got dumped by his true love when young and turned to alcohol for consolation. Now he doesn’t even have that as his liver has packed up but ekes out a living as a tourist guide. He’s not a success with the ladies but a beautiful redhead chats him up in the pub. I liked ‘Gwen’ by S.L. Howe because there are many Eds in the world, and they’re okay. Not victims on the news, just unsung plodders getting on with life.
‘Bullbeggar Walk’ by editor Paul Finch pits Devon farm labourer Ned against a London yuppie with a big salary who has just bought a house locally. Ned resents it that house prices are out of reach for young people in the district. His own cottage is worth crazy money but that makes no difference because he won’t ever sell it. Ned challenges the newcomer to take the bullbeggar walk but regrets it later. The creature in this feature is original.
In ‘Certain Death for a Known Person’ author Steve Duffy lures you into a cosy, happy family narrative with his pleasing first-person narrator and then socks you with difficult ethical issues. One of my favourites in the book.
‘Knifesmyth Steps’ by A K Benedict features a hen party haunting on Christmas Steps in Bristol, which used to be known by that more colourful name apparently and can be deadly at night. I enjoyed the story very much, despite having traversed the location on many occasions at all hours of the night without ever being accosted by anything spooky.
‘Terror Tales of the West Country’ may pique people’s interest in the region but is unlikely to lead to an increase in the tourist trade. It’s hard to choose between deadly Devon and scary Somerset but staying home may be the best option! Paul Finch intersperses the fiction with interesting ‘true’ stories of local ghosts and ghoulies. This latest book in the series is as good as the rest and even better if you’re already familiar with the locality, as I do be. Best read with a nice glass of cider and a gert big lump of cheddar cheese, ooh arrgh.
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