“So, it’s – what – like magic?”
No, according to Pen’s uncle, the Rite is not magic at all. But, if it’s not magic, then how could Pen push the school bully into a pond while he was really studying alone in the library?
When Pen’s family realise he has the Rite, he is sent to live with his Uncle Napier, who can help him control his ability.
But Napier has other duties. He is the Rendelf, in charge of the Rite in the UK, and he has gathered many enemies over the years…
…enemies who would be delighted to use Pen against him.
Don’t tell anyone, but Kelli spends all her free time listening to folk music. Ok, it’s not what you’d expect from a popular fifteen-year-old, but that’s why she doesn’t want the whole world to know.
When Kelli follows the mysterious Tam Lane, she finds herself in a place where folk songs come to life. As she comes to terms with the world, she makes friends, uses her privilege to help others, and even falls in love.
But Kelli has forgotten the fates which await so many characters in the songs, and she soon finds herself surrounded by heartbreak. Determined to protect the people she has left, can Kelli change a fate which has been sung for centuries?
When Rebecca Williams’ mother dies, she is sent from the city to rural Lincolnshire to live with her father. What she finds is a quiet, unassuming man who lives alone on a large country estate.
Lonely and nervous, Rebecca makes friends with a boy she meets at the lake. However, as their friendship develops, she discovers that her new friend is haunted by a secret which Rebecca must first unearth before it can be laid to rest.
A ghost story inspired by the guidelines used by the great M. R. James, but with the freshness in tone of the twenty-first century, The Backwater weaves together the guilt of the living and the anger of the dead to produce a chilling but tender story of one girl's struggle to find her place in the world.
"The Devil's Servant" is included in this haunting anthology by a varied group of women writers of Gothic fiction.
When Reuben Fancroft bumps into Henry Giles at the Great Exhibition in 1851, he is invited back to Giles' townhouse, where they spent time together during their university days. He discovers that Giles has spent his family's fortune to buy everything he can relating to the Young Romantics. His prize possession is O'Connell, a servant who previously worked for Percy and Mary Shelley. Giles' interest has led to obsession, and Fancroft worries for his friend's sanity, especially when it becomes apparent that Giles is suffering from nightmares and hallucinations.
Hoping to protect his friend, Fancroft arranges for them to travel to Giles' family estate in Lincolnshire but, to his horror, Giles' madness only increases. With his friend succumbing to the insanity, Fancroft begins to question the motives of the apparently faithful O'Connell.