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  The Ghost of The Pannell Witch -...

  Melissa Manners

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  A collection of spooky tales to invade the mind and explore the legend of the Ghost of The Pannell Witch. 
  Each story in this collection takes the reader on a deep dive into one of the many versions of the legend of Mary Pannell, who was executed for witchcraft in the small town of Kippax, West Yorkshire, in 1603. Her ghost is said to haunt the woods on the hill that to this day bear her name. 
  Was she the town’s wise woman, providing herbal remedies to its residents? Like many women executed for witchcraft in the 17th century, she may have been betrayed by her own friends and neighbours. But even in death, perhaps she continued to help those who needed it. 
  Perhaps she targeted by her local community because of her sexuality. What if her ghost takes it on herself to look out for the queer residents of Kippax? 
  Or is her story a darker one? Some say that whoever sees the ghost of Mary Pannell will soon have a death in the family. That Mary takes out her revenge on the young sons of Kippax. When one determined mother, who has lost everything, decides to fight back, can she manage to save the town? 
  Background music provided by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "SCP-x2x (Unseen Presence)", Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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  Dragon of the Sea

  Kristie Clark

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  Discover the Caribbean's ancient sea dragon and the origins of the gold treasure she guards. 
  After losing his place in Queen Isabella’s court, Fernando, the illegitimate teenage son of Christopher Columbus, embarks on a journey with his adopted Taíno brother Diego to the West Indies where they encounter the ancient sea dragon. And when Fernando witnesses the blood the colonists shed for gold, he decides he must courageously document these atrocities before the Taíno people are gone forever. 
  Will the young Fernando, a lover of books, use his quill and journal as a brave knight might use a sword and shield? 
  Dragon of the Sea is a standalone historical fiction short story, and also serves as the historical prologue to the contemporary Sci-Fi Thrillers Killing Dragons, Dragon Gold, and Dragon Clan. Dragon of the Sea is book zero in the Order of the Dolphin book series by Kristie Clark. It may be read in any order with other books in the Order of the Dolphin series. 
  Dragon of the Sea won a Finalist Award for the Chanticleer Short Story Awards in the Chaucer category.

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  Diary of a Lunatic - From their...

  Leo Tolstoy

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  Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the Russian province of Tula to a wealthy noble family. As a child, he had private tutors but he showed little interest in any formal education. When he went to the University of Kazan in 1843 to study oriental languages and law, he left without completing his courses.  Life now was relaxed and idle but with some writing also taking place.  Gambling debts forced an abrupt change of path and he joined the army to fight in the Crimean War.  He was commended for his bravery and promoted but was appalled at the brutality and loss of life.  He recorded these and other earlier experiences in his diaries which formed the basis of several of his works. 
  In 1852 ‘Childhood’ was published to immediate success and was followed by ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Youth’. 
  His experience in the army and the horrors he witnessed resulted in ‘The Cossacks’ in 1862 and the trilogy ‘Sevastopol Tales’. After the war he travelled around Europe, visiting London and Paris and meeting such luminaries as Victor Hugo and Charles Darwin.  
  It was now that Tolstoy began his masterpiece, ‘War and Peace’. Published in 1869 it was an epic work that changed literature. He quickly followed this with ‘Anna Karenina’.  
  These successes made Tolstoy rich and helped him accomplish many of his dreams but also brought problems as he grappled with his faith and the lot of the oppressed poor. These revolutionary views became so popular that the authorities now kept him under surveillance.  
  He led a life of asceticism and vegetarianism and put his socialist ideals into practice by establishing numerous schools for the poor and food programmes. He also believed in giving away his wealth, which caused much discord with his wife.  
  His writing continued to bring forth classics such as ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’ and many brilliant and incisive short stories such as ‘How Much Land Does A Man Need’.  
  In 1901 Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Church and controversially deselected for the Nobel Prize for Literature. 
  Whilst undertaking a pilgrimage by train in October 1910 with his daughter Aleksandra he caught pneumonia in the nearby town of Astapovo.  Leo Tolstoy died on November 9th, 1910, he was 82.

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  The Ghost in the Cupboard Room -...

  Wilkie Collins

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  Wilkie Collins was born on 8th January 1824 in Marylebone, London.  
  The family moved several times in his early years before, at 12, they travelled to France and Italy for 2 years where the sights and atmosphere made a deep and lasting impression on him. 
  He resumed his education at Mr Cole’s private boarding school in Highbury, Islington.  Here, he began his literary career under unusual circumstances: the school bully would give him no peace until he had been told a bedtime story.  This ‘little brute’ helped create one of England’s greatest writers.  
  On leaving school, in 1841, he became a clerk at a tea merchant before, 2 years later, publishing his first short story.  However, his first novel was rejected and remained so during his lifetime.  
  A brief stint at Lincoln’s Inn to please his father and to acquire a steady income was halted by his father’s death.  Collins then wrote and published his fathers’ memoirs.  He then completed his legal education though he would never practice.  
  In March 1851, he was introduced to Charles Dickens and there now started a period of sustained literary output and a remarkable lifelong friendship.  His stories were published in Dicken’s magazines, and he toured with Dicken’s theatrical before the two of them travelled to the Continent. 
  By the early 1860’s worrying signs of ill-health appeared with rheumatic gout.  As it worsened, he sought respite and cures in German spa towns and gave up writing to help his recuperation. 
  His personal life had become very complicated.  He was living with the widowed Caroline Graves and conducting an affair with a much younger Martha Rudd.  With the serialised release of ‘The Moonstone’ and vicious attacks of gout Caroline left him and married another.  Collins was now prescribed opium and was soon its lifelong dependent.  Martha bore him two children and with the return of a now divorced Caroline Graves he now divided his time between the two women. 
  In 1874 he set aside writing to tour North America on a reading tour. 
  Throughout his later years he continued to write and publish.  In all 30 novels, 14 plays, 60 short stories and over a 100 non-fiction essays as well as many more collaborations with Dickens. 
  In 1884 the Society of Authors elected him as it’s Vice-President. 
  Wilkie Collins died from a paralytic stroke on September 23rd, 1889, in London. He was 65.

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  The Hare - A Short Horror Story

  Michael van der Voort

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  At first, the sound was subtle. A low, almost imperceptible tapping just on the edge of hearing, and yet, from the moment I heard it, the sound conjured that phrase: ‘The patter of tiny feet.’I had always hated that expression, ‘the patter of tiny feet.’ Even as a child, the words had sent a chill through me. I knew, of course, what they were supposed to mean, the joy of offspring, the sound of children in some other room or just out of view, playing merrily and creating said patter with their mischievous stumbling back and forth. In that context, it was a lovely phrase. An idiom that made others think of proud mothers seated downstairs as infants somewhere on the landing above giggled and ran between rooms. But that was for others...

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  Uncomfortable Bed An - From...

  Guy de Maupassant

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  Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5th, 1850 near Dieppe in France.  
  Maupassant’s early life was badly torn when at age 11 (his younger brother Hervé was then five) his mother, Laure, a headstrong and independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace in order to obtain a legal separation from her husband. 
  After the separation, Laure kept custody of her two boys. With the father now forcibly absent, Laure became the most influential and important figure in the young boy's life.   
  Maupassant’s education was such that he rebelled against religion and other societal norms but a developing friendship with Gustave Flaubert began to turn his mind towards creativity and writing. 
  After graduation he volunteered for the Franco-Prussian war. With its end he moved to Paris to work as a clerk in the Navy Department.  Gustave Flaubert now took him under his wing.  Acting as a literary guardian to him, he guided the eager Maupassant to debuts in journalism and literature.  For Maupassant these were exciting times and the awakening of his creative talents and ambitions. 
  In 1880 he published what is considered his first great work, ‘Boule de Suif’, (translated as ‘Dumpling’, ‘Butterball’, ‘Ball of Fat’, or ‘Ball of Lard’) which met with a success that was both instant and overwhelming.  Flaubert at once acknowledged that it was ‘a masterpiece that will endure.’ Maupassant had used his talents and experiences in the war to create something unique.  
  This decade from 1880 to 1891 was to be the most pivotal of his career.  With an audience now made available by the success of ‘Boule de Suif’ Maupassant organised himself to work methodically and relentlessly to produce between two and four volumes of work a year.  The melding of his talents and business sense and the continual hunger of sources for his works made him wealthy. 
  In his later years he developed a desire for solitude, an obsession for self-preservation, and a fear of death as well as a paranoia of persecution caused by the syphilis he had contracted in his youth.  
  On January 2nd, 1892, Maupassant tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat.  Unsuccessful he was committed to the private asylum of Esprit Blanche at Passy, in Paris.  It was here on July 6th, 1893 that Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant died at the age of only 42.

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