A chilling, haunting ghost story set in the modern day which delves into the real-life legend of a 19th century sea witch…
Previously published as The Drowning Pool in 2011
Relocated to a coastal town, widowed teacher Sarah Grey is slowly rebuilding her life, along with her young son Alfie. But after an inadvertent séance one drunken night, her world is shaken when she starts to experience frightening visions.
She tries to explain them away. But Alfie sees them too and Sarah believes that they have become the targets of a haunting attack.
Convinced that the ghost is that of a 19th Century local witch, Sarah delves into local folklore and learns that the witch was thought to have been evil incarnate. And when a series of old letters surface, Sarah discovers that nothing is as it seems, not even the ghost who haunts her very home…
Perfect for fans of The Midnight House, The Familiars and The Lighthouse Witches.
Previously published as The Drowning Pool in 2011
Christmas: a time for family and festivity. Unless you're in Adder's Fork, home of the Essex Witch Museum, where it's a time for ghostly spirits and demonic visits. In these twelve short stories, menacing ghosts and supernatural terrors haunt Rosie Strange and Sam Stone, as well as characters past and present from beyond the Essex Witch Museum. Featuring stories from The Strange Casebook as well as original short stories.
Halloween in Essex, and things are going well for the writers on the Mystery and Suspense course at Ratchette Hall. Things, however, take a turn when early on All Saints' Day the course administrator is discovered murdered. The Essex Witch Museum investigators are quickly drafted in. As Rosie Strange and Sam Stone's investigation progresses they find more questions than answers: who is making the howling noises late into the night? What is the strange glimmering glimpsed in the woods? Why is one of the church crusaders missing a finger? And what of the enigma of the ancient empty tomb? When another writer turns up dead, the pair must use their experience of folklore, mystery and magic to solve the mystery.
Ghosts, witches and all kinds of creepy things seem to congregate in the town of Adder's Fork, where the world-renowned Essex Witch Museum has its home. It's not long before owner Rosie Strange and curator Sam Stone must take matters into their own hands.
It's summer in Adders Fork. The sun is out, the sky is blue and things are going swimmingly for Rosie Strange. The Essex Witch Museum has been relaunched with a new Ursula Cadence wing and picnic grounds. Then developers roll into the sleepy village to widen the road. When the centuries-old Blackly Be boulder, said to mark the grave of a notorious witch, is moved, all hell breaks out. Within hours a slew of peculiar phenomena descends and, when a severed head is discovered atop the boulder, the locals storm the Museum to demand someone take action. Can Rosie and Sam unravel the mystery? And what of the ancient treasure that could drastically change someone's fortunes and offer a motive for murder?
The La Fleur restaurant has a slew of unusual phenomena. Bonnet-clad apparitions pass through walls, blood leaks from ceilings and rats besiege the dining room. Experts from the Great Essex Witch Museum are called in to quell these strange sights. But before Rosie Strange and Sam Stone can do their thing, events turn darker. For La Fleur's chef has been strung up and slaughtered like a pig. More oddly, the only witness, the owner's daughter Mary, swears blind a ghost did it. Rosie and Sam must find out what's happening before Mary takes the fall. But intuitions and tip-offs lead them stumbling into the dark waters of the past, exposing secrets of a wider conspiracy, as well as secrets all of Rosie's own.
Rosie Strange doesn't believe in ghosts or witches or magic. It's no surprise therefore when she inherits the ramshackle Essex Witch Museum, her first thought is to take the money and run. Still, the museum exerts a curious pull over Rosie. There's the eccentric academic who bustles in to demand she help in a hunt for the bones of the notorious Ursula Cadence, a witch long since put to death. And there's curator Sam Stone, a man about whom Rosie can't decide if he's tiresomely annoying or extremely captivating. Finding herself and Sam embroiled in a peculiar centuries-old mystery, Rosie quickly discovers that the secrets of the past come with their own real danger as a strange magic threatens to envelope them all.
