Today, a short reading from my new ghost story, Alice and the Broken Dead, perfect to get you in the mood for Halloween!
It’s the latest in my bestselling series The Ghosts of Alice, about a young woman who discovers she has a strange ability to connect with the dead.
Each book is a standalone ghost story, but connections run between them. So you can read them in any order, although it’s probably best to start with the first, The Boy in the Burgundy Hood.
Check out Alice and the Broken Dead on Amazon here.
Just to let you know that, to celebrate the release of the fourth Ghosts of Alice book, Alice and the Broken Dead, I’m running a Kindle Countdown Deal on the other books in the bestselling series about a woman with a mysterious connection to the dead. The Boy in the Burgundy Hood is 50% off and The Girl in the Ivory Dress and Alice and the Devil 35% off!
Perfect reading for the run up to Halloween – grab them while you can! 👻
Just to let you know I’m holding a Start of Summer Sale on the Ghosts of Alice series!
For the first time ever, The Boy in the Burgundy Hood, the first book in the series, is absolutely FREE on Kindle! If you haven’t already read it, now’s your chance to discover the plight of Alice Deaton, a young woman with a mysterious connection to the dead, as she prepares the opening of medieval Bramley Manor for a heritage trust. What will she do when the ghosts start appearing – the boy in the burgundy hood and the woman with the wounded hand? The secrets of Bramley are darker and more grisly than she would ever have imagined…
PLUS… the other two books in The Ghosts of Alice series are in the Start of Summer Sale too – The Girl in the Ivory Dress is just 99p / 99c, and Alice and the Devil £1.99 / $1.99! That’s the whole series reduced from £7.97 / $9.97 to £2.98 / $2.98!
In other news, I’ve just finished the first draft of the next book in the series. It hasn’t got a title yet, but I can tell you it’s set far from (Alice’s) home in Nepal and India, where Alice has a very different type of mystery to solve. More soon!
The Ghosts of Alice series – three of my books starting with The Boy in the Burgundy Hood – chalked up 5000 sales this week!
I never thought when I began indie publishing my stories that I’d sell anything like that number. I was always happy just to know people were able to find and read (and hopefully enjoy!) what I’d written. So this has been the icing on the cake, especially during the couple of periods when The Boy in the Burgundy Hood hit bestseller status on Amazon.
If you like ghost stories, and want to read about an unusual hero with a mysterious connection to the dead, why not give the series a go?
What readers say about The Boy in the Burgundy Hood:
***** ‘The perfect modern day ghost story with a grisly twist’ ***** ‘Impossible to put down’ ***** ‘Creepy and satisfying’ ***** ‘A compelling and spinetingling read’ ***** ‘Too scared to sleep… extremely good book, I read it in one day!’ ***** ‘Turn the screw it does, right up to its terrifyingly dark finale.’
I’ve been thinking recently, how often does the ending of a film, book or TV series exceed your expectations? How many times have you been blown away – either devastated or thrilled – in those closing moments?
(Alert – there are plenty of spoilers in this post, so proceed with caution…)
For me, there tend to be two, linked things that lift a story above and beyond the norm. Sadly, one of them is the death of the main character. As a young boy, I was forever imprinted by watching The Alamo with John Wayne, filled with feelings of horror, loss, admiration, and above all disbelief as Davy Crockett pitched himself into the magazine store with a torch in one last act of defiance. I felt similarly about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Saving Private Ryan (such a horrifyingly impersonal but cinematically astute way to pick off a character we’ve come to cherish), The Green Mile, Million Dollar Baby, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The ending of Night of the Living Dead is horrific, on both an intimate and a broader, social level. (Incidentally, that film was released a month before the US MPAA film rating system came into place, so was first watched by stunned kids and teenagers in a Saturday matinee in Pittsburgh). Everyone remembers the final episode of the First World War series of Blackadder, in which the sharp-as-a-tack Captain Blackadder is sent over the trenches with his hapless brothers-in-arms to certain death.
I think the ultimate story ending can also be linked to death, but doesn’t need to be. It’s more to do with a surprise twist that transforms or reframes all that’s gone before. The Wicker Man is one of these – what, no, it can’t all have been… and what’s going on now… surely he’s going to get out of there… Other films with great twists include The Others, The Usual Suspects, Get Out. But I think the best of all, and thus without doubt my favourite film, is The Sixth Sense. How many stories require you to retrace the whole course of an already gripping narrative right from the start?
I was thinking about all this because I’ve strived for those big twists that turn the whole story around in some of my own books. Particularly The Boy in the Burgundy Hood, The Girl in the Ivory Dress, Black Beacon and, probably most dramatically, The Man in the Woods. Because I love it. And want to do more of it. And most of all, because I want to make sure it works for you, the reader!
Tell me a book, film or TV show that’s made you sit up in your seat or burst out into tears. Endings that were devastating or breathtakingly thrilling, that took you somewhere above and beyond all the rest. I’m looking out for my next watch, and my next read.
What image comes to mind for you when you think of a haunted house?
I’ve been writing ghost stories for 5 years now and I’ve realised that the houses I have haunted have become progressively more ‘everyday’ with each successive story. As if you don’t need heightened melodrama of a setting to chill – fear can come to you in the most mundane of places.
In The Boy in the Burgundy Hood, the red-hooded boy and the wounded woman haunt an old medieval manor with sprawling grounds and a creepy stumpery. Bramley Manor is a stately medieval hall with a grand fireplace and a Tudor section.
The haunting in The Girl in the Ivory Dress takes place in a Victorian guest house in a remote spot on the Welsh coast. The house is quite old, but it’s been completely renovated and has all modcons.
Alice and the Devil focuses on a rundown Victorian rectory on the moors in the Peak District, although much of the action takes place on a curious set of giant, wooded rocks nearby that are filled with caves and strange features.
My latest ghost story Black Beacon, however, is set in an ordinary 1930s house – although it is isolated from civilisation up on the Sussex Downs. And even more so, after a rare Christmas snowfall.
Do you prefer your ghost stories set in a classic, decaying country house – or do you think the spook can happen anywhere?
You can check out all my books on my Amazon page – perfect for the festive season!
Later this week I’m starting a (thinks fast) Spectacular Spooktober Sale (!!) on The Ghosts of Alice series.
Running up to Halloween, each of the three titles will have a week on sale on Kindle at the discounted price of 99p/99c.
If you haven’t discovered The Ghosts of Alice yet, it’s a series of standalone books that feature Alice Deaton, a young woman with a mysterious connection to the dead. In the first book, the bestselling The Boy in the Burgundy Hood, Alice lands her dream job to open a medieval house to the public – only to find when the ghosts start appearing not all is as rosy as it seems…
Really looking forward to this event organised by the fantastic people at Ghost Walks Surrey and Explorers Events Ltd!
If you’re nearby, why not come along and join us? A spooky ghost tour of the town will be followed by me doing a reading and Q&A. Plus there’ll be an opportunity to buy signed copies of my books.
See below for more details, reposted from Ghost Walks Surrey Facebook page:
A new and exclusive event in collaboration with local author Steve Griffin.
Steve is the author of the bestselling ghost stories of the Ghosts of Alice series, beginning with ‘The Boy in the Burgundy Hood’.
Following a one hour Ghost Walk visiting the most haunted hotspots in the town, we will meet Steve in The Narnia Room within the Old House on West Street where he will read to you some excerpts from his novels. You will have chance to ask him questions and to buy signed copies of his books.
Tickets are VERY limited. This really is an exclusive event.
Saturday 13th May 2023 Meet 7.15pm for a 7.30pm start outside Dorking Halls on Reigate Road RH4 1SG.
Tickets cost £15.
The event will last for approx 2 hours and will finish at the Narnia Room.
My final list of books that I’ve prepared for Shepherd.com is the best ghost mystery stories.
Why I love horror stories
We try and pretend the world is not mysterious, in the vague hope of exerting some control over our lives. But that’s a doomed endeavour. Everything will always slip away from our grasp, plummeting into a chasm that we can only fill with two human responses: awe or terror. Sometimes – perhaps most often – both.
This is why I’ve always preferred the gothic and sublime to the classical and ordered. Both are necessary, but the gothic like the church spire always points to the infinite, to the profound mystery that envelops us. That’s why I’ve liked horror movies and books ever since I was a kid. You’re forever clutching at a cushion, guessing – or rather fearing – what lies ahead, just around that corner…
And that’s why I started writing ghost stories, books that major in suspense and make you realise, as Stephen King’s narrator says in Bag of Bones, that “reality is thin, you know, thin as lake ice after a thaw, and we fill our lives with noise and light and motion to hide that thinness from ourselves.”
My favourite ghost mystery stories
So if you’re hankering after a shot of terror (often with a smidgeon of awe thrown in), check out my best ghost mystery stories here. And if you think I’ve missed a treat, let me know your favourite ghost story in the comments below. (You can also check out my other book lists for Shepherd, the best books with portals for children and young adults, and the best books with nature poems to make you think and feel.)
And while you’re here, why not take a look at my own ghost mystery stories, The Boy in the Burgundy Hood and The Girl in the Ivory Dress – the two standalone novels in The Ghosts of Alice series, about a young women who has a very strange connection to the dead:
Photos have a big impact on my writing. Often, they can inspire a scene that inspires a whole book. This picture of my son looking across a landscape has morphed into the opening scene of my current work in progress, Alice and the Devil, the third book inThe Ghosts of Alice series.
Shortly after I took it, I set it as my wallpaper on my laptop. It was a few weeks before it began working its magic on me. Initially I had an idea for a wholly different book, a piece of speculative fiction, but then I realised it could fit with a ghost story. Who is the boy? Why is he on his own? What’s with the sheep in his backpack? And that barn to the right – doesn’t it look a bit like a pair of eyes, the dark, disembodied eyes of the farm? Just add a torrential rainstorm and the whole Alice and the Devil story came to life…
Here’s a few more photos that have worked their way deep into my imagination for other books:
#picsthatinspiredbooks – The Boy in The Burgundy Hood
This is the fabulous Ightham Mote, the fourteenth-century house that inspired Bramley Manor in the first Ghosts of Alice novel, The Boy in the Burgundy Hood.
As soon as I saw it, I knew that this medieval house was the perfect setting for my ghost story. I’d already been inspired by the strange story of a job interview that my wife had gone to at another old house (see here). It wasn’t long before I overlaid the two elements and started to evolve my plot.
Pics that inspired The Secret of the Tirthas
Now here’s some photos of the amazing garden of hedged ‘rooms’ in Herefordshire that inspired my young adult adventure mystery series, The Secret of the Tirthas.
Many of the rooms had sculptures or statues, often from different religions. I thought it would be great if they were all secret portals to related sites across the world. Imagine just having to step outside your back door to go to all these fabulous places!
The discovery of these new places through the portals by Lizzie Jones became a ‘fantasy’ element in itself. That, plus the demonic killer also using the portals to prey on street children in the first place Lizzie discovers, Kashi, the Indian City of Light…?
Photos that inspired The City of Light
Finally, here’s the incredible city of Varanasi, or Kashi, in India, which inspired the first novel in The Secret of the Tirthas, The City of Light. I went backpacking in my twenties and came down into India from Nepal. This was the second place I stayed and I was stunned.
I kind of knew straight away that this would inspire my writing. But it was only many years later, after discovering the hidden gem of a garden in Herefordshire, that I had the idea for The Secret of the Tirthas. And I decided on Kashi as the first place our hero Lizzie Jones would come after discovering the garden’s magical portals.
Here’s a taster from The City of Light, when Lizzie emerges from the portal:
“[She] stopped, stunned, finding herself looking at the most extraordinary sight she’d ever seen.
An ancient sun-bleached city sprawled before her, stretched along the bank of an enormous river. The city’s buildings were a bright, exotic mix of colours – red, ochre, sand, and white – and many had domes or intricate beehive towers. Some sat at the top of broad flights of steps that ran down into the water, whilst others were perched on the river’s edge. A few tilted forward precariously, appearing as if they were about to collapse into the swirling waters and be lost forever. And everywhere, on the steps and in the buildings and out in small boats, the city’s inhabitants went about their business in the soft, hazy sunlight.
Lizzie stood in awe, absorbing the view. If only all her dreams were as impressive as this…”
