Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
Figurehead - cover

Figurehead

Carly Holmes

Publisher: Parthian Books

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

'(An) impressive first collection ... skilfully orchestrated' – Publishers Weekly "starred" review
'This truly is quality literature of our modern times' – The British Fantasy Society
'To read Carly Holmes is to be enchanted. Luscious, flowing prose that is never afraid to peer into the wild' – Angela Readman
Beneath her soft skin covering, my mother was once made of twigs and branches. Sometimes in the autumn I swear there was a gleam of berry in her eye, a sloe-shine peep between the thorny tangle of her lashes.
In this debut collection of stories Carly Holmes peers into every corner of the strange fiction genre: from rural gothic through to traditional ghost stories and the uncanny. Mothers turn into trees when the sun goes down; Russian Dolls mourn their missing sisters in rotting houses; men offer sacrifices to the monsters who embody their inner wildness; and murderous demons protect young girls' virginity.
Ranging from flash fiction to novelette, these stories are in turn chilling, playful, and melancholy. The bonds of family and of community, both in their fracturing and their healing states, the uneasy relationship between living in the present and yearning for the past, are themes that thread their way through Figurehead. Every tale is rich with landscapes haunted by loss and longing.
Available since: 03/24/2022.
Print length: 296 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Dead America - El Paso: Creeping Death - Part 4 - cover

    Dead America - El Paso: Creeping...

    Derek Slaton

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    With only one major chokepoint remaining between the horde and El Paso, survivors make their way to the town of Van Horn to set up defenses. 
Dead America - The Second Month series follows survivors from coast to coast as they deal with the threats posed by both the living and the undead.
    Show book
  • Dracula - cover

    Dracula

    Bram Stoker

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    “Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!” - and with these words, the English lawyer Johnathan Harker is drawn into a world of infamous and legendary horror... A genre defining gothic horror classic, of the fight between modern and learned civilisation and ancient and terrible superstition. 
Narrated by Michael Ward.
    Show book
  • The Festival - cover

    The Festival

    H. P. Lovecraft

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    It's important to acknowledge where you come from, and to keep old family traditions alive. The old ways should be remembered. But maybe, just maybe, some traditions are best left behind.
    Show book
  • Evening's Entertainment An - cover

    Evening's Entertainment An

    M. R. James

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    An Evening's Entertainment is a tale that lives up to its deceptively quaint title, offering not comfort, but a slow, tightening dread. In the hands of master ghost-storyteller M. R. James, a quiet rural setting becomes the stage for something far more sinister—where folklore whispers, tradition conceals, and the past refuses to stay buried.
Dripping with unease and the chill of things half-seen, this is a story to be heard in silence, with the lights low and the wind outside. It is not simply entertainment—it is an invocation.
Let the evening begin.
    Show book
  • The Haunted House Saga - There is nothing scarier than a Couch Potato! - cover

    The Haunted House Saga - There...

    Rachel Lawson

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    There is nothing scarier than a couch potato! 
When the ghost of one of the Necromancer's victims follows him home he proves to be a nightmare but what is so scary? The power bill he drives up.
    Show book
  • The Wendigo - cover

    The Wendigo

    Algernon Blackwood

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    A monster lurks in the Canadian forests. If the legends are to be believed, a small band of hunters is about to meet the Wendigo.  
The legend of the Wendigo originates from folk stories from the Plains and Great Lakes Native Americans. The creature is a malevolent spirit, known to possess and even eat humans.  
Algernon Blackwood crafts this ghostly tale masterfully, filling it with atmosphere, tension, and drama.
    Show book