Spooks Lodge

Come to Spooks Lodge, come if you dare

Search for the secrets that are hidden there!

NOBODY you meet, you hold his hand.

Isn’t life wonderful? Isn’t it grand?

But turn a wrong corner, tread where spiders abide,

And it could be Rosie who walks by your side.

Stop for a chat, drink a warm cup of tea,

That blueberry muffin, was it really from me?

Frederick Saaler

The Lost Soul

Black eyes. Seeing eyes. Death eyes.As Keeper of the Dead, Sondra Carstairs can see, hear and feel souls that no longer walk among the living. Or she could when she was younger. But as an eighteen-year-old, Sondra ran from everything that it meant to be Keeper, including Anona Island, the home of generations of Keepers. Twenty-two years since Sondra ran from being Keeper, she receives an appeal from a lost soul which forces her to return and face the darkness of Anona. Anona, the home of the Keepers, is no longer a safe haven for anyone, including Sondra. And when she learns just what someone is prepared to do, she must decide whether becoming Keeper is worth stepping on the path she’d avoided for so long or not. For the Keeper protects. She protects the dead. She protects the living. Embracing the darkness within is Sondra’s only chance to survive.

The First Bride

In The First Bride, Katja Brown illustrates a deeply dark and infinitely descriptive account of the mystery and allure of the infamous Count Dracula. Through the eyes and with the musings of a young Countess, the picture is painted of who Dracula was, how he became such a monster, and precisely how he met his demise. Our countess shares her personal worries and concerns, her amusement and boredom, and her need to experience the world in a heightened state. From her home in England to the foreign reaches of Transylvania, she searches for answers to her own history and family, and comes to wonder at the cosmic mysteries of the dynamics of life and death. Though she was dispatched to her uncle in Transylvania for the purpose of developing a proper, noble ladylike behavior, she meets intriguing and extraordinary individuals, falls to the whims of a horrible and sinister man, and returns to her home as a changed woman with a newborn vampire perspective of time and death.  

The Evil Inside

When entering his domain, you will discoverHe is beyond a manHe is beyond a monsterHe is the darkness that exists in the darkest recesses of the mindA corrupted psycheA sickened soul.You will not see himYou will not hear him.But he knows you’re thereAnd he will find you.

Northern Souls

Eric leaves the funeral of his girlfriend, suspected of her murder, to commit suicide. Her ghost appears, telling him of demonic tribes fighting to seize control within the north-east of England. With his friends Taylor and Emma, he investigates these increasing and brutal attacks while the ghost of Grace visits Eric, imparting directions and clues. They confront and battle the unholy forces from Tynemouth to Gateshead and all around. Eric makes a pact with a group of demons in return for saving the soul of Grace. He is given unspeakable supernatural power as they see his use, though Eric soon struggles with the fury and dark hellfire within.The people from all around the north-east soon learn of many increasing murders, torturous killings and hideous deaths around them, and many take refuge in churches and temples. Taylor is distracted by a mysterious stranger, and Emma learns of a connection to events at Holy Island. With the friends separated while the bloody carnage mounts around the north-east, can the northern souls be saved?

Insanitus2

Prepare for a nauseating, disgusting, vile, puke-inducing, nonsensical little tale.See: ‘BOGEY’‘You’re telling me ... this Gruntfuttock fella ... sticks a post horn up his backside and blows the frigging Post Horn Gallop!!??’See: ‘BLOW’‘It ripped and tore itself through the birth canal and out into an unsuspecting world.’See: ‘IMAGINATION’S CHILD’And then it happened.  From the far right-hand corner of the pit, striding out from the darkness, he, it came!See: ‘FIRE!’ 

Complex Hell

It's present-day Sunderland and a mysterious manuscript is discovered in the house of an evil spirit, leading the unwary reader to a tale of the sixties in North East England, where not everything is quite as it seems. Forbidden love, loss and a lifetime of pure evil lie in store for whoever dares turn the ageing pages further. In Devils Wood House the memory of the missing girl, Rose, waits desperately. Unfortunately for her, time is not on her side. Can her soul be saved or will the child be lost forever? "Richard Valanga writes about the Afterlife like nobody else today. He's the 21st-century Dante of the North." - Tony Barrell, The Sunday Times

Winter Tales

Threatening, gloomy skies. Dark, chilly days and even darker, colder nights. Whispering from the corner or the rustle of dead leaves? A vision of the future or your worst nightmare come true? A silly game or a portal into the unknown? Was that a creak on the stairs or just the wind whistling in the eaves? You don’t have to believe in ghosts to enjoy a ghost story. Between these pages, you will find ghosts of all kinds. Not all ghosts are scary as I set out to prove in some of these stories. Some of the spirits within are indeed dark and vengeful, while others are playful and helpful and one wants to be forgiven for a past sin, despite the cruelty and injustice he himself suffered. All the stories within are set during winter, at or near Christmas, when in many homes it is traditional to read or listen to ghost stories, so curl up by the fireside and read on. I hope you enjoy the ghostly tales inside this cover. Sweet dreams and sleep well!

The Vessel of Elseland

Dante is a struggling artist. His hopes and dreams are shattered by the world harshly looked down upon. Lost his job and tormented by his own demons. But he has more to fear. Something monstrous. Something much, much more…

Haunted by horrifying nightmares of a world that are beyond the senses of exquisite pleasure and pain imaginable. He slowly spirals down into his personal hell – breaking away any hope and his own sanity.

Plagued by questions of what is real and what is hallucination caused by his madness. In these moments, he would be aided him by the kindness of a mysterious redhead woman. But is she really a friend or a foe?

Dante will soon face the terror of his nightmares and his personal tormentors – triggering a dark path that would change his destiny forever.

The Purge

In an epic sequel to The Awakening, the town of Rockdale is rocked by a series of cataclysmic events that threatens to bring about an ancient prophecy: one that foretells of a blood moon and the mass extinction of all mankind at the hands of the Nequam. The Nequam’s hold over Rockdale intensifies as Ash Wakehurst fights to end its reign and free his twin brother, Logan, from its maniacal grip. Ash is humanity’s last hope as he possesses the only weapon to stop the Nequam and its army of werewolves: the powerful Triune entity that surges within him. An entity that he fears he can no longer control.

As he races against time, he must fight a battle of another kind: the fight to maintain his own humanity and protect the people he loves, including the beautiful detective that he is falling for, Anya Chemarov.  

Anya has a struggle of her own to contend with as she is forced to admit her feelings for Ash and make a difficult choice. Will she fight to keep the man she loves despite her fear that evil may consume him, or will she leave, knowing she may lose him forever?

Their destinies are all intertwined and the decisions that they make before the next blood moon will determine the fate of all mankind when the prophecy comes to pass.

Will the right choices be made, and will anyone be left standing at the end?

The Inheritor

An unknown inheritance can be a dream come true. But for Callum Hopkins, this dream descended into a dark nightmare.

Callum is conflicted. He can either seize a chance to find happiness, belonging and power or follow his family’s vows on a path of brutal consequences where only the strong will be left standing.

The Inheritor is a story about a family sworn to protect and serve a secret society and a village determined to avenge a cruel dark past.

The Ghost of Glencoe

The story of the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692 is still widely told around the Highlands of Scotland. The Campbell Dragoons came, asking for shelter from the Glencoe MacDonalds. They were fed and housed for two weeks before they arose one night and butchered their hosts in their beds.

Anna takes her two small sons to a cottage in Glencoe for the summer. She meets Calum, who is dealing with a crazed ex-girlfriend, Helena, but there is something more sinister lurking around Anna’s cottage. Her six-year-old son is talking to ghosts and Anna is having violent dreams, reliving the night of the massacre as Kirstin MacDonald, who died horribly from frostbite, screaming for her missing son, two weeks after the massacre.

With the help of an eccentric local historian and his sidekick, they try to save Anna’s son from Kirstin’s ghost, but things are not what they seem.