I’ve always enjoyed mystery and suspense stories—Agatha Christie and Mary Higgins Clark being two of my all-time favorite authors. Throw in some legends and folklore, and I’m hooked. I like well-crafted stories that keep me turning the pages. Those that stump me in figuring out the mystery are a plus for me. I love books with descriptive settings that place me, as the reader, in the heart of the action.
Dual-timeline, legends, and folklore drew me to this story. While it was co-authored, the dual story blends perfectly as if written by a single person. Past and present come together, and an age-old mystery is solved.
If you enjoy stories with a bit of supernatural, this one is for you.
One founding father. One deathbed curse. A town haunted for generations.
Ward Chatham, founder of Chatham Hollow, is infamous for two things—hidden treasure and a curse upon anyone bold enough to seek it. Since his passing in 1793, no one has discovered his riches, though his legend has only grown stronger.
In 1888, charlatan Benedict Fletcher holds a séance to determine the location of Chatham’s fortune. It’s all a hoax so he can search for the gold, but he doesn’t count on two things—Victor Rowe, a true spiritualist who sees through his ruse, and Chatham’s ghost wreaking havoc on the…
Some authors plan a book then write it. I can’t. I need to find a fresh surprise every day as I discover the book by writing it. And it’s been mavericks, oddballs, and outsiders that have drawn me in. I’m a maximalist. I enjoy the extreme and exotic. I empathise with outsiders. Having trained as a psychologist I developed an interest in oddities of experience and behaviour. And this focus on the maverick matches the potentials of fiction. Novels are great at depicting the inner lives of their characters, their motivations and worldviews, and the diverse ways to be human.
Training as a psychologist, I read Leon Festinger’s study “When Prophecy Fails” describing his research study infiltrating a doomsday cult whose believers expected to be rescued by flying saucers from the planet Clarion. Alison Lurie then novelised this scenario in Imaginary Friends. Here we meet a parade of oddballs: psychologists whose everyday normality is deceit, pretending to be delusional themselves, spying on other’s lives: a group of pious, well-meaning souls awaiting extra-terrestrial salvation: a cult leader who receives and relays the group’s alien guidance: the lead researcher who claims to be possessed by the spirit of “Ro of Varna”.
It’s a deft and clever satire that shows the conventions of oddness, and the oddness of conventions.
Roger and his all-time hero, Tom McMann, are about to infiltrate the Truth Seekers - a unique small-town cult whose credo involves sex, spiritualism and science fiction. Their flying saucer messiah is Ro, resident of the distant planet Varna, who sends his daily cosmic messages through Venea, a nubile teen-age psychic who lives with her Aunt Elsie in upstate New York. For Roger and McMann the experience is all a bit much, held spellbound by Verena's considerable charms and Ro's imminent trip to Earth, all sense of logic falls apart; and before they know it, the sanity of rational thought…
Ursula K. Le Guin said science fiction is a metaphor of the now. It allows us to defamiliarize ourselves with the issues around us, so we can see everything from a new lens. As someone who worked in tech spaces and once wrote a poetry-generating program, I am interested in how people use language to write about technology, at all levels. I appreciate the blend of older forms of technology like phonographs along with newer forms like ChatGPT. Languages interest me: how we translate to speak to machinery or people, and how translation itself can feel like a kind of wormhole into another world.
This is a wild, one-sitting read. At first you might not know where you are, but after a few pages, you’re completely hooked.
It’s creepy and visceral about what it means to be a mother when the world is turning more and more toxic. It might be considered an eco-horror book. This story works on your subconscious, leaving you with a sticky, unsettling feeling.
Also, it’s translated from Spanish. The title of the Spanish version is The Rescue Distance.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2017
'The book I wish I had written' Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women and Animal
A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a remote Argentinian hospital. A boy named David sits beside her.
She's not his mother. He's not her child.
At David's ever more insistent prompting, Amanda recounts a series of events from the apparently recent past, a conversation that opens a chest of horrors. Together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family.
A chilling tale of maternal anxiety and ecological…
My father, a history teacher, often pointed out battlefields and scenes of historical importance when I was a child: so an ordinary-looking countryside became the place where knights in armor clashed, or where Viking longboats glided along a river. I grew up habitually overlying vivid scenes from the past on modern landscapes, all of which inspired me to write novels, including The Night of the Triffids, Blood Crazy, and Darkness Demands. Much of my fiction reflects my interest in the evolution of the human mind and how our minds are molded by the world we live in, hence my choice of the five books that I do wholeheartedly recommend for the eager adventurer in thought.
Published 1893, Laing considers all kinds of searching questions relating to astronomy, geology, spiritualism, poetry, taxation, finance, and much more. Clearly a possessor of a powerful intelligence, Laing endeavors to make sense of the universe and human life with the limited information he had at his disposal, compared to what we know today. How does the sun burn, he asks? Is it made from coal? A notion he dismisses with rational precision. Later, he considers the arms race from his nineteenth century viewpoint and uncannily predicts a “Great War” that will engulf most of Europe, with “Constantinople” being the likely catalyst of “the blood-rain deluges of the greatest war the world has ever seen”.
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.
I am the author of the Black Viking and Hellbent Riffraff Thrillers and several volumes of dirty realism poetry. I am also the Founder and editor-in-chief of Bristol Noir, an indie publisher and ezine specialising in curiously dark fiction and crime noir. Since 2017 Bristol Noir has been publishing up-and-coming and best-selling authors from around the world. I’m a writer originally from Northumberland in Northern England. In the late 90s, I studied in Greater Manchester when the IRA bomb went off and during the infamous years of the Hacienda club. I now live in Bristol. I’ve devoted my writing to exploring my heritage and the environments I’ve been in.
This is the dirty realist poet, Charles Bukowski's, last novel and is filled with intriguing code and name-dropping of people he knew and was influenced by. As well as being as poetic as hell. Pulp also gives a glimpse of what it might have been like if Bukowski had lived on and ventured fully into crime fiction or pulp noir.
I love the book’s surface-level simplicity to draw you into its world. However, it then subversively lets bigger themes creep in: including surrealism and spiritualism, as the author faces his own death. All this with Bukowski’s deftly poetic touches.
This showed me how semi-autobiographical elements can fuse and influence fiction and vice versa. And, that it doesn't have to be hard to absorb or distract from the story. By acknowledging layers in writing which are there for those who want to peel back and discover them. And when they don’t,…
Charles Bukowski's brilliant, fantastical pastiche of a detective story. Packed with wit, invention and Bukowski's trademark lowlife adventures, it is the final novel of one of the most enjoyable and influential cult writers of the last century.
Nicky Belane, private detective and career alcoholic, is a troubled man. He is plagued not just by broads, booze, lack of cash and a raging ego, but also by the surreal jobs he's been hired to do. Not only has been hired to track down French classical author Celine - who's meant to be dead - but he's also supposed to find the…
My passion for metaphysics was ignited by an odd sequence of events that followed my husband’s death in 2001. He had been profoundly affected by progressive multiple sclerosis. Yet, beginning the night after his death and for the twenty-two years since, he has reached out to me time and again. I take great comfort in knowing that he's still somewhere, and very much his former vibrant, funny, loving self. Even though my life has moved on, and I met the woman who would later become my wife, my late husband remains very much a part of my life and spiritual education. As to who I am—only time will tell.
In October 2004, I tuned the television to the series, Unsolved Mysteries, to provide background noise while I had lunch.
When George Anderson’s story was featured, I was riveted, and ordered We Don’t Die as soon as the show ended. That led me to a myriad of other metaphysical books and experiences, and a fascination that has not waned in the nearly two decades since I first heard of George and his ability to speak with those who have passed from physical life.
As I have learned over the years, it was not by accident that I saw that TV show. It was a soul signal that I’d set for myself before birth, to guide me to a new phase of my life.
This is the phenomenal true story of the world-renowned psychic medium George Anderson-the groundbreaking book that first brought afterlife experience into the light. For over 12 years Joel Martin documented evidence of Anderson's powers-the ability to reach 'the other side'-and repeatedly astonished believers and skeptics. This is the book of those universal visions, the inspiring messages of hope, truth, and peace, and a glimpse into eternity to answers to the unfathomable questions about life and death.
I devoured this book because it resonated with many of my spiritual beliefs.
The MC is an evolved being who is the daughter of a goddess, she is reincarnated many times. I loved the higher power and the evolved beings, alongside human evolution as the MC lived through the ages. I am a Spiritualist and I truly believe that we are here on this earth plane to learn and grow.
This book offered a unique perspective on life, and the human psyche. This book left me asking questions about my own life, a deep and meaningful read indeed.
Living amongst the Gods and Goddesses of the Universe, Gaia 'Mother Earth' falls in love with a human man. For love Gaia takes a piece of her heart turning herself human so she can live a short mortal life and be with the man she loves.Through their love they create a new evolved human, her name is Laryssa.Others are born, created so that their child will never feel alone, and through these evolved creations, eternal love is born - two souls from one light - Empaths.Those of us who know what this is will understand, those who do not, need…
I’d
never heard of this 1940s novel, but it was recommended to me because I liked Sam
Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners.
Norman Collins’ household of
London lodgers shows us everyday life in the 1930s and war - night clubs,
offices, parlours, rainy streets and sunny parks, séances, and dances. So many
stories of this time are about stereotyped characters speaking lost slang, but
this could have been published yesterday.
The moment I finished it, I missed
kindly retired clerk Mr. Josser, elderly club hostess Connie, would-be gangster
Percy Boon, and Henry Squales, the apparently fake spiritualist medium... or is he?
Also known as Dulcimer Street, Norman Collins's London Belongs to Me is a Dickensian romp through working-class London on the eve of the Second World War. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Ed Glinert, author of The London Compendium.
It is 1938 and the prospect of war hangs over every London inhabitant. But the city doesn't stop. Everywhere people continue to work, drink, fall in love, fight and struggle to get on in life. At the lodging-house at No.10 Dulcimer Street, Kennington, the buttoned-up clerk Mr Josser returns home with the clock he has received as a…
I love
fictional spiritual books about mediums and tarot cards, and this book has it
all.
The lead character is an out-of-work actress who takes a second job at a
metaphysical shop, only to find out she is more psychic than the other
employees who work there.
It's fun, exciting, and has lots of spooky twists.
The Accidental Medium is the first book in a hilarious series from Tracy Whitwell featuring Tanz, the accidental medium who, with the help of the dead, is about to become an unwilling crime-solver.
Tanz is a wine-loving, straight-talking, once-successful TV actress from Gateshead, whose career has shrivelled like an antique walnut. She is still grieving for her friend Frank, who died in a car crash three years ago, and she has to find a normal job in London to fund her cocktail habit. When she starts work in a 'new age' shop, Tanz suddenly discovers that the voices she's hearing…
I enjoy historical fiction and reading about people who are completely different from me. This novel takes place in first-century Scotland, a country I love and a time period I know little about.
The characters are fascinating; one sister probably has Asperger’s and has never spoken. The other sister has always watched out for her. When the first sister meets a Roman and begins speaking, both of their lives, as well as the lives of their tribe, change forever.
I loved the characters, and I loved the ancient magical spiritualism that the tribes believed. It’s a great story.
When Morragh speaks to another person for the very first time, she has no idea that he is an invader in her land.
What she does next constitutes a huge betrayal of her people, threatening her closest relationships and even her way of life itself.
As the conflict between the Caledonian tribes and the Roman Sons of Mars intensifies, can she use her high status in the community to lessen the coming death toll or even prevent outright war?
Set in 1st century Northern Scotland, SISTERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD is a story of chosen sisters, fierce warriors,…
