Special offers

It is still three months to Christmas but not too early to think about buying presents. And what better presents can there be for family and friends … but books. Or a gift for yourself. We at The Alchemy Press wish to assist you in this task. For the next month or so we have several books, fabulous anthologies and collections, all desperately looking for a new home – your home. But stocks of some titles are low so act fast. Check out our special offers page for full details and prices.

Also on offer, limited edition hardcovers::

Nick Nightmare Investigates by Adrian Cole. In this frenetic collection of stories taken from the files of Nick Nightmare, Private Eye, the intrepid pulp hero is thrown into a murky world of crawling horrors, spawned by the Old Ones as they seek to rise up from their primordial oceanic depths, ‘when the stars are right.’ Just £15 including p&p in the UK.

Rumours of the Marvellous by Peter Atkins. “Rumours of the Marvellous is a superb collection of short stories by Peter Atkins that fall in the borderland between SF, fantasy, horror and the super­natural.” — David V Barrett, £15 including p&p in the UK.

Where the Bodies Are Buried by Kim Newman.  “Meet Rob Hackwill, folk demon. A blackmailer killed by his victims, returning to expose what they are really made of. Or so the script goes. But then Hackwill slithers out of film into reality. Where the Bodies are Buried is a heady brew of pulp horror, political satire and twisted technology. These four stories deconstruct the myths of the late twentieth century – with a hatchet. Prepare to laugh. Prepare to shudder. Prepare to find out Where the Bodies Are Buried.” £15 including p&p in the UK.

Listed Dead

The Alchemy Press’ Jan Edwards — co-editor of The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors volumes 1 and 2 — has a new novel out: Listed Dead.

Claude Naysmith’s fatal car crash occurs on the borders of the Perringham Estate and Bunch Courtney can hardly avoid being drawn into events. When the body of Penelope James is found just a few miles away, clutching a list of names that includes both herself and Naysmith, Bunch and Wright are left wondering. Could this be a hit list? Is it sheer coincidence? Since neither Bunch nor DCI Wright believe in coincidences they must throw their combined efforts into the investigation before any more of those names wind up on the mortuary slab.

For further information pop over to the Listed Dead page at The Penkhull Press.

A Small Thing for Yolanda reviewed

“This is a superb novella and Jan Edwards packs a multitude of delights into its eighty-six pages. The sense of place is brilliantly done, evoking both the glamour and the intrigue of the Parisian entre-deux-guerres epoch, while still retaining a wry contemporary sensibility. Letitia/Yolanda is an appealing and fascinating creation and her double life nicely sets the tone for a tale where most of the other characters have alter egos and/or hidden agendas. The shift from the world of espionage, political unrest and the emerging struggle between fascists and communists, towards a hidden conflict between occult forces and creatures is tensely and subtly done and while the experienced horror reader may predict a certain direction when Yolanda finds a box of silver bullets, Edwards is too well versed in the supernatural to confine her tale to lycanthropy alone, although, fittingly for a tale set in France, the legend of the Loup-garou does indeed feature.”

Reviewed by Con Connolly in Phantasmagoria 15. Check out the full review on the books page, here.

 

Horrors 2 reviewed

Reviewed on the Runalong the Shelves website

Horror like any genre has some extremes. It could a gentle scare to full-on bloodbath. Sometimes reading helps you work out where your boundaries are or how far into the deep waters I’m prepared to go before turning back. The second Alchemy Press Book of Horrors managed to do just that as many of the stories were brilliantly done but blimey there were often chilling.

So if you’re feeling ready for rich darkness here are a few of the tales in the collection I got struck by ‘Beneath Nambian Sands’ by Pauline E Dungate. This is a atmospheric tale of someone trying a rescue mission in the desert. Its clear something weird has happened but Dungate winds up tension to the last possible moment. And then bloodily unleashed.

‘Promises’ by Nancy Kilpatrick. This story in the collection that tells of love, loss and Whitstable. Horror movie fans may recall it’s famous resident. Melancholy and strange with a haunting ending.

‘The Secret Place’ by Samantha Lee. A mother and her daughter move to a old house or a writing retreat. The daughter left to her own devices make a new friend but tragedy is coming, This story is dark and unfair and chilling all at once. You’ll feel a shiver in the end.

‘Lirpaloof Island’ by Garry Kilworth. This story is dark comedy tale of an office prank that goes awry with deadly consequences. It mixes the absorb and the horror skilfully.

‘The Hate Whisperer’ by Thana Niveau. A really cold story where a young woman investigates how certain people when photographed experienced a massive and deadly change in their personalities. Nasty events spiral and the end is shocking and bloody.

‘We Do Like To Be Beside’ by Peter Sutton. A summer horror holiday that covers a nasty nightmare and that plays with the desire to be free of our families in a very unpleasant way. Great sense of building horror for the incident child experiencing events.

‘Footprints in the Snow’ by Eyglo Karlsdottir. This tale mixes a weird world event with family grief. The dead can return when it snows and now snow can happen at any time. A mother finds her dearest wish can be deadly. Unsettling and bittersweet.

A collection with many strands of horror in there and I think gives a variety of experiences but when it wants to get its teeth into you it does. A set of tales I think seasoned horror fans will enjoy a lot.

For more info on this anthology check out the Horrors 2 page. The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 2 is available in eBook and print formats from the usual suspects.

Announcing a New Alchemy Press Anthology

THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF HORRORS 3: A MISCELLANY OF MONSTERS

 

Monsters are many things. They come in all forms, shapes and sizes: from to the tiny to the titanic; from amorphous blobs to many limbed (or tentacled) monstrosities; from supernatural demons to man-made terrors. They come from any place and time: from under the bed to the woodshed; from the icy wastes to the darkest jungles; from the depths of the ocean to outer space; from the past, the future, the now!

Many things. Any things.

We are looking for stories featuring monsters for The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 3: A Miscellany of Monsters to be edited by Peter Coleborn and Jan Edwards. To get a flavour of the type of writing we prefer, we suggest you check out volumes 1 and 2 of the series, available in print and eBook formats from Amazon and other sellers.

Check the above link for further details.

 

Talking to Strangers reviewed

TALKING TO STRANGERS AND OTHER WARNINGS by Tina Rath has been reviewed by John Gilbert in Phantasmagoria magazine issue 15.

When people try to ridicule the horror and fantasy genres as lightweight and frothy or gory and gratuitous puff, I just point them in the direction of authors such as Tina Rath. Dr Rath is truly a renaissance woman; an academic with a fascination for supernatural literature and folklore, an actress, Queen Victoria impersonator, poet, and librarian; she has a formidable intellect and ferocious wit. Oh, and according to Gail Nina-Anderson’s ‘Introduction’ to Talking to Strangers, Tina’s latest short story collection, she is a part-time vampire.

The twenty-nine supernatural tales in her brand new ‘best of’ collection range from the dark and forbidding to the gently humorous, many of them distilling a sense of unease from everyday items in contemporary settings with a hefty sting in the tale. The best stories in the collection demonstrate Dr. Rath’s deep knowledge of classic and contemporary supernatural fiction. Alien encounters is the theme of ‘Talking to Strangers in Finsbury Park’; ‘A Visit to Blastings Manor’ is a superb Christmas ghost story; in ‘This is How It Happened’, a classic fairy tale is given a modern setting. A young cleaner gives a hospital ward an unusually deep clean in ‘Ilona’ and in ‘A Beautiful Boy’, a handsome young man appears to bring out the best and youthfulness renewed in an old folks’ home.

A newcomer at St Walburga’s school shows herself as no geek and no pushover for the bullies in ‘Scruffy The Vampire Slayer’ and a lodger proves more difficult to get rid of than originally anticipated in ‘Sitting Tenant’. ‘Diversion’ takes bus passengers on anything but a magical mystery tour whilst ‘A Trick of The Dark’ poses the fateful question, “What kind of job finishes just at sun-set?”. ‘“It’s White and It Follows Me”’ is a ghostly lament; ‘The Fetch’ in a tale of a ghostly guest first published last year in a collection to commemorate the life of R. Chetwynd-Hayes; in ‘The Bus’, Mrs Fortescue waits for eternity and in the ‘Fifth Sense’ the author engages in some clever lycanthropic olfaction (the lengths to which I go in order to hide spoilers).

Packed full of supernatural fun and surprises, Talking to Strangers… demonstrates the great breadth and depth of Tina Rath’s talent as a writer of supernatural fiction, collecting together the very best of her output during thirty-seven very productive years and four stories which were specially written for this book. Entertaining, dark, perplexing and humorous, the stories will keep horror fans enthralled during many a day in lockdown and beyond.

Talking to Strangers is published by The Alchemy Press and is available from Amazon and other online dealers.

* * * * * *

While we’re here, I thoroughly recommend Phantasmagoria magazine, published by Trevor Kennedy several times a year. Available from Amazon in print and Kindle formats.

 

 

Roll Call

The thirty-nine steps books

 

Two new novellas

Two novellas are now available from The Alchemy Press:

A Small Thing for Yolanda by Jan Edwards

The Métro Murder is one of the most famous unsolved crimes of the 1930s. Who was Laetitia Toureaux? What were her links within the murky world of spies and secret political movements? All of those things remain shrouded in mystery, despite the fact that her movements on her final day are well documented. How was she stabbed to death in an apparently empty Métro carriage? And by whom? A Small Thing for Yolanda offers one potential solution.

Les Vacances by Phil Sloman

Monasteries rising and falling. Heretics and stakes and fire. There were rebellions and revolution and tales of abundance and happiness and new beginnings. Within the book there were also lies and omissions and fallacies all designed to gloss over a dark past many had long forgotten. Many but not all. The vacation of a lifetime.

Both novellas are available in print and eBook formats (Kindle, Kobo, Apple).

Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus pandemic there appears to be issues with the books appearing as in-stock on sites such as Amazon. Also, the prices may be incorrect. Both should be £5.99 each (print) and 99p as an eBook.

 

Two new books launched tonight

Tonight at 7.00 p.m. (UK time) we launch two new books, Talking to Strangers and Other Warnings by Tina Rath and The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 2 edited by Peter Coleborn and Jan Edwards. Because of the covid-19 lock-down it is an online launch on Facebook.

Tina Rath’s twenty-plus tales exhibit an innate sense of structure that allows for a satisfying conclusion – and often a sting in the tail. These are unashamedly entertaining stories, dark fantasy with a touch of humour, that display a deftness of touch inviting us to enjoy the words on the page. They don’t outstay their welcome or labour their points because they don’t need to – Tina Rath knows how a story works. And they work well. Very well indeed. With an introduction by Gail-Nina Anderson.

Strange stories and weird tales and all of the creeping horrors in between. Horrors 2 features seventeen fabulous writers, including Sarah Ash, Paul Finch, John Grant, Nancy Kilpatrick, Garry Kilworth, Samantha Lee … to lead you on a spine-tingling tour from seaside towns to grimy cities, to the lonely and secret places, from the fourteenth precinct to Namibia … and so many places in between.

We’ll also be showcasing two novellas due at the end of April: Les Vacances by Phil Sloman and A Small Thing for Yolanda by Jan Edwards.

Join us on Facebook here for the event and quiz — there will be prizes!

 

eLaunch for Alchemy Press books

Talking to Strangers and Other Warnings by Tina Rath

The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 2 edited by Peter Coleborn and Jan Edwards

The Alchemy Press was intending to launch a couple of titles at this year’s Stokercon later this month. But it is not to be. Alas, Stokercon has been postponed — it’s that cursed covid-19 virus to blame.

And so it’s IT to the rescue. If you are on Facebook pop along to the online launch event and say hello to some of the books’ contributors. There will even be a prize or two…

Visit the Facebook events page for details.