A succubus is stalking the streets of Preston. But she's not just giving certain young men erotic dreams: she's leeching the life out of them. With Detective Chief Inspector Alf Stone still on paternity leave after the birth of his son, it's down to DI Alexandra Johnson to investigate. But why are all the victims called Ryan? And how on earth do you bring an entity to justice? With the help of young witch Mary Conway, the newly formed 'Unusual Investigations' team of Ratcliffe and Kat, her new sergeant and a computer whizz of a PCSO, Johnson begins to unravel a web of intrigue that goes back fifteen years. Then Stone returns and starts digging into a cold case...
On the edge of a playing field in the Lancashire town of Longridge is an abandoned railway tunnel that is reputedly haunted. It used to serve an old stone quarry that has now been given a new lease of life as a holiday park. Six eighteen-year-old friends are staying in a static caravan at the park when one night a violent storm forces them to stay indoors. One of the girls downloads a talking Ouija Board app to her laptop for 'a bit of fun', but the following morning the three boys in the group have gone missing. Detective Sergeant Pauline Pilkington is handed the job of finding out what has happened to them but has little luck until DCI Stone calls in the Unusual Investigations team of former Detective Constable Jerry Ratcliffe and his partner, the corporeal spirit of murdered witch Kat Hewitt. Their enquires lead them to an encounter with a boggart known as The Headless Woman of Longridge. Then Sergeant Pilkington disappears as well.
These ten stories, set over a historical span of a century, explore the ties that bind people to those they love. Frank and his grandmother Sibyl. Etta and her generous friends. Joanna and her sister Molly. An American President. And Lucy and John.
In a tarn in a country park in the heart of the Lancashire countryside lies the body of a young man. His death causes all sorts of problems for Detective Chief Inspector Alf Stone and his team because, according to the police pathologist, this his not the first time he has appeared on the autopsy slab. The investigation brings to light the ancient 'were' tradition of the county where witches became hares to escape the attention of the law. Now Mary Conway has chosen to learn the art of becoming a were herself for the sole purpose of halting the resurgence of the illegal so called 'sport' of hare coursing. But her intervention uncovers a far more sinister threat: camped not far from the country park are a group of renegade Romani, led by the wolf-witch Daciana Lupescu, who have fled the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania and plan to set up a colony on Wolf Fell not far from the country park.
A chance encounter with a charismatic fortune teller called Marcus at a psychic fair in Manchester leads Emma Craine into a situation that imperils her soul. For he has a familiar - an incubus which is the reincarnation of Sinistrari, the infamous 17th century Vicar General of Avignon. To maintain his youth, and power over women, Marcus has struck a deal with Sinistrari: every seven years he must mark someone out for him - to do with as he will - and Emma is his latest victim. But in attempting to open Emma's psychic senses he inadvertently awakens her to the power of the Earth Mother. She also finds allies in her sister and her husband and they desperately fight back when the incubus tries to collect on the pledge. Subtle help is also supplied by the enigmatic witches of Pendle who recognise Emma as one of their own, but will it be enough to save her when the demon comes to call for the final time?
“A love song to a lost New York” (New York magazine) from novelist, essayist, and critic Frederic Tuten as he recalls his personal and artistic coming-of-age in 1950s New York City, a defining period that would set him on the course to becoming a writer. Born in the Bronx to a Sicilian mother and Southern father, Frederic Tuten always dreamed of being an artist. Determined to trade his neighborhood streets for the romantic avenues of Paris, he learned to paint and draw, falling in love with the process of putting a brush to canvas and the feeling it gave him. At fifteen, he decided to leave high school and pursue the bohemian life he’d read about in books. But, before he could, he would receive an extraordinary education right in his own backyard. “A stirring portrait…and a wonderfully raw story of city boy’s transformation into a writer” (Publishers Weekly), My Young Life reveals Tuten’s early formative years where he would discover the kind of life he wanted to lead. As he travels downtown for classes at the Art Students League, spends afternoons reading in Union Square, and discovers the vibrant scenes of downtown galleries and Lower East Side bars, Frederic finds himself a member of a new community of artists, gathering friends, influences—and many girlfriends—along the way. Frederic Tuten has had a remarkable life, writing books, traveling around the world, acting in and creating films, and even conducting summer workshops with Paul Bowles in Tangiers. Spanning two decades and bringing us from his family’s kitchen table in the Bronx to the cafes of Greenwich Village and back again, My Young Life is an intimate and enchanting portrait of an artist’s coming-of-age, set against one of the most exciting creative periods of our time—“so thrilling…so precise in presenting a young man’s preoccupation and occupation” (Steve Martin).
The murder of Jennifer Southern in her cottage on the outskirts of a Lancashire village re-ignites a legacy of witchcraft that was thought to have ended four hundred years ago when the Pendle Witches were hanged at Lancaster Castle in 1612. But their descendants have lived on, following the old ways and keeping themselves to themselves until now it seems someone is determined to wipe them out. As the death toll rises, events finally force the police to work with the modern-day witches in a bid to hunt down the killer.
How come my new computer panics when I type the word 'poltergeist'? What would happen if the spiral of history brought two famous star-crossed lovers back together again in the 21st century? How would you deal with a toddler who started to show magical powers at pre-school? What if your daughter's imaginary friend suddenly started to become all too real? What is the secret of the isolated Inn discovered by a group of hikers on the Lancashire Moors? And how has Private Investigator Kat Hewitt's dead granddad ended up in the local police station on Christmas Day? Six strange stories of magic and the paranormal from the author of the Detective Inspector Stone Supernatural Crime novels.
