General & literary fiction Books

'Crofts constructs his alibi with immense elaboration...The story is highly successful, and Mr Crofts is to be congratulated upon his experiment' - Dorothy L. SayersWe begin with a body. Andrew Crowther, a wealthy retired manufacturer, is found dead in...

In the seeming tranquility of Regency Square in Cheltenham live the diverse inhabitants of its ten houses. One summer's evening, the square's rivalries and allegiances are disrupted by a sudden and unusual death - an arrow to the head, shot through an...

After battling for justice, at great personal risk, in his first recorded case, Sergeant Caleb Cluff made a swift return to duty in this book. The story opens one wet and windy night, with the discovery of a young woman's corpse, lying face down on the...

'He could feel it in the blackness, a difference in atmosphere, a sense of evil, of things hidden.'Amy Snowden, in middle age, has long since settled into a lonely life in the Yorkshire town of Gunnarshaw, until - to her neighbours' surprise - she...

When a counterfeit currency racket comes to light on the French Riviera, Detective Inspector Meredith is sent speeding southwards - out of the London murk to the warmth and glitter of the Mediterranean. Along with Inspector Blampignon - an amiable...

The Notting Hill Mystery has been widely described as the first detective novel. The story is told by the insurance investigator Ralph Henderson, who is building a case against the sinister Baron R___, suspected of murdering his wife in order to claim...

Duchlan Castle is a gloomy, forbidding place in the Scottish Highlands. Late one night the body of Mary Gregor, sister of the laird of Duchlan, is found in the castle. She has been stabbed to death in her bedroom - but the room is locked from within and...

'Jefferson Farjeon is quite unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures.'Dorothy L. SayersRichard Temperley arrives at Euston station early on a fogbound London morning. He takes refuge in a nearby hotel, along with a disagreeable fellow...

Samuel Whitehead, landlord of the Rose and Crown, is a stranger in the lonely East Anglian village of High Eldersham. When the newcomer is stabbed to death in his pub, and Scotland Yard are called to the scene, it seems that the veil dividing High...

Prince's College, Cambridge, is a peaceful and scholarly community, enlivened by Prudence Pinsent, the Master's daughter. Spirited, beautiful, and thoroughly unconventional, Prudence is a remarkable young woman. One fine morning she sets out for Suffolk...

No observer, ignorant of the situation, would have guessed that death lurked nearby, and that only a little distance from the glitter of silver and glass and the hum of voices two victims lay silent on a studio floor.'On a fine autumn weekend Lord...

Far below, through the moonlit wood, the lake was visible again and the Island in it. Dim, like a phantom ship, it lay in the silver waters and from the nearer end of it shone a narrow rectangle of light... so dull and red and smoky looking that it...

The doll wasn't lying on the floor of the cage, but was standing against the padlocked door. And as the curtains parted it turned its face sharply towards me...As mannequins, automata, effigies and dummies, dolls have haunted our imagination since...

Timothy followed, in his dream, and saw the ungainly, yet agile creature clamber in through the cat-flap... He could hear the flip-flop as it went up the stairs, and he woke himself, screaming, in a tangle of sheet and blanket. On Sunday night the dream...

"Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood. Let us go to sleep now."A prophecy threatens a volcanic upheaval for a star-crossed pair. A forbidden rite binds a dark arts dabbler to a phantom bride. A barstool chancer invites a devilish...

When Robert Spinrobin, drifting through life in a daydream, answers a newspaper ad asking for an imaginative tenor with a grasp of ancient languages, he soon finds himself travelling to rural Wales and the home of ex-clergyman, Philip Skale. Here Skale,...

Suddenly the upper rim of the clear setting sun disappeared behind the hill of Knockdoula, and it was twilight. Each child felt the transition like a shock ... and the rounded summit of Lisnavoura, now closely overhanging them, struck them with a new...

Join a host of female writers in celebrating the sunshine months of the year. As a sister volume to Stories for Winter, this collection of 15 short stories takes its inspiration from the holiday season. Grab a copy as you head off to the beach or to lie...

All about us on the stairs was some of the most exquisite statuary I have ever seen... save for a few pieces carved in the form of some hideous beast, the like of which I have never seen on earth...The sunken continent of Atlantis has dwelt in the...

The pipe music shrilled suddenly around her, seeming to come from the bushes at her very feet, and at the same moment the great beast slewed round and bore directly down upon her.In 1894, Arthur Machen's landmark novella The Great God Pan was published,...

Skill, subtlety and stylistic assurance ... her moral comedy illumines life. Daily Telegraph Harriet Cooper bumps up a rutted lane in a Hillman crammed with everything she owns. She has come to claim her inheritance a large green bus left to her by her...

"Cara!" Mr. Wilkinson stood on the jetty looking out at the long, low shadow of the island, dark against the setting sun. "A beautiful place, and a beautiful name.""It's the Gaelic word for a corpse."From the dramatic Highlands to bustling cities and...

A Pygmalion-style story told with von Arnim's characteristic wit and charm, this novel introduces us to Salvatia (known as Sally), a much longed-for child to humble shopkeepers. Sally grows up to be an extremely beautiful girl, attracting the attentions...

Stories for Winter is a collection of short stories that take their inspiration from this cold, snowy season, whether it's winter holidays, weather-related predicaments or seasonal celebrations. In keeping with the spirit of the Women Writers series, the...

Miss Cullen finds herself in a dreadful predicament. Four years from retirement, she can no longer meet the educational standards expected nor control her pupils at Besley High School for girls. She knows that no other school will hire her now, but if...

In the wood the grey stone rose from the grass, and she cried out and ran back in panicked terror. 'What a silly little girl,' the nurse had said. 'It's only the... stone.'Standing stones, stone circles, tumps, barrows and ancient clearings still remain...

She got up, without meeting his eyes, and went into the bedroom to dress. That was life all over; you wanted to make a good exit, and you remembered you were still in your housecoat.Single girl Liza leaps into an exciting new sexual relationship with...

Something was coming down the tide. It came down as quiet as a sleeping bairn, straight for him as he sat with his horse breasting the waters, and as it came the moon crept out of a cloud and he saw a glint of yellow hair.From misty moors, crags and...

I knew the site of the hut and the hill behind it up which I had rushed, and in the flickering glow the eyes of the rats still shone with a sort of phosphorescence.Beyond the genre-defining influence of Dracula, Bram Stoker was also a master of the short...

In this volume, Johnny Mains dives into the archives to unearth a hoard of twenty-one enthralling tales imbued with elements of Celtic folklore, ranging from the 1820s to the 1980s and including three weird lost gems translated from Gaelic. Together they...

Fearsome Fairiestaps into the enormous fascination with fairies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and includes cornerstone authors of the Weird genre such as Arthur Machen, M R James and Charlotte Riddell.You see no, you do not, but I see...

Back from the shouting floor and ceiling came the chorus of images that stormed and clamoured for expression. Jones lay still and listened; he let them come. There was nothing else to do.Algernon Blackwood was one of the most influential writers of...

Enjoy daily distraction with this engaging Almanac. Each date is assigned one or more literary connections. Book lovers will find extracts from authors' diaries and letters, chance upon the narrative twists and transformative moments in their favourite...

The sea that night sang rather than chanted; all along the far-running shore a rising tide dropped thick foam, and the waves, white-crested, came steadily in with the swing of a deliberate purpose.From foreboding cliffs and lonely lighthouses to rumbling...

Darkness now was around me and sound. I seemed to stand in the centre of some yelling planet, the row resembling the resounding of many thousands of cannon, punctuated by strange crashing.The violent peals of a disconnected bell in the night; a trudging...

A mysterious news signal reports cosmic doom from an otherworldly location. X-ray evidence suggests the impossible truth that a sculptor is becoming one with his creation. A gramophone channels the venomous words of a churlish spirit and its cruel...

Suddenly he tripped and fell his length over a prostrate body... he marvelled that so rough an impact should not have kicked a groan out of the drunkard...With a stiff measure of the supernatural, a dram of melodrama and a chaser of the cautionary kind,...

"... and what a motive! Murder to save one's artistic soul... who'd believe that?"Behind the stage lights and word-perfect soliloquies, sinister secrets are lurking in the wings. The mysteries in this collection reveal the dark side to theatre and...

A mariner inherits a skull that screams incessantly along with the roar of the sea; a phantom hare stalks the moors to deliver justice for a crime long dead; a man witnesses a murder in the woods near St. Ives, only to wonder whether it was he himself...

'There was no one in the room. Blinds and curtains were closed; the light of the skies, if any, was shut out. ... Only the fire was alive, consuming its life-for what? Then the door opened and as Claudia came with hurried steps into the fire's glow, two...

Great stories ignite a child's imagination and can fill a childhood with unforgettable characters, wondrous places and superb illustrations. They also allow young readers to explore, and to understand, their different feelings and experiences.In her...

Sheridan Le Fanu was lauded by contemporaries such as M R James for his innovations in the ghost story and mystery genres, and his mastery of conjuring atmosphere and driving stories to thrilling narrative crescendos. And yet, aside from some regularly...

The vampire is one of the great enemies of humanity, a nightmarish figure who feeds on the living in order to sustain themselves. Born from ancient folklore, writers in the nineteenth century gave form to the vampire as we know it today. Still haunting...

'Joanna sat with her cheek against her [Libby's] shining hair. She had hardly thought of Steven since he slammed his way out of the house, but now, welling up within her and pouring out over her love for Libby, came an intolerable flood of envy.' Widowed...

"May I ask your daughter's age?" "Nan is thirty-three.""A dangerous age."Rose Macaulay takes a lively and perceptive look at three generations of women within the same family and the 'dangers' faced at each of those stages in life. The book opens with...