The Curse of Heatherwell House (Working Title) came from a slightly different place than many of the other stories in this collection. When I decided that I was going to put together a collection of short stories with the theme of Gothic Horror, I quizzed Clemency on what would scare her. She said “zombies”. Not the easiest thing to work with for Gothic Horror – give me a ghost any day. Here are some thoughts about how I went about creating The Curse of Heatherwell House … Once I had spoken to Clem about the things she finds scary – and discovered which of my back catalogue she found the creepiest – I started to get an idea for a story. It involved a vicar (obviously the younger son of a wealthy family, as all these Gothic vicars seem to be) who took over gravedigging responsibilities because the rest of his parish were too sick to do it. I was pleased with the premise – and perhaps it will turn into another story. Watch this space… But there was one major sticking problem: whils...
Christmas is coming, it's only four days away! For someone who loves Christmas so much, the festival and celebration of Christmas does not feature in as many of my books as I would have expected. All the same, I've drawn together a couple of snippets concerning Christmas from various stories I've written, and I present them to you now as my #HistFicThursdays offering (you can also find a couple from Beneath Black Clouds and White here , as well as last year's offerings here ). Philip was almost grateful of the laborious journey, as it numbed his body to the pains which lay ahead. Instead, he concentrated all his thoughts on the imminent arrival of Advent. It had always been his favourite season of the church’s year. The coming of peace. And he was ready for peace. ~ from The Year We Lived The presents were distributed by Hamish and Roger and all those present had a gift matched perfectly to their recipient. The day continued with games and carols, for which Catherine ac...