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A house with a troubled personality? The setting of The Man in the Woods

Do you think a house can have a troubled personality?

My latest novella, The Man in the Woods, is set in the Surrey Hills. It’s a landscape of rolling pine-clad hills and gentle valleys, a place where it doesn’t take long to find deep stillness and magic, belying the fact it’s less than an hour’s drive from London.

A troubled house in the woods, inspiration for The Man in the Woods
scary house in mysterious horror forest at night

I’ve been living on the edge of the Surrey Hills for 13 years now and love the place. But, as is common with creative writing, the house that inspired The Man in the Woods was somewhere else altogether. It was a house on the edge of a woodland in Kenilworth, a small town in Warwickshire, where I lived for a couple of years as a teenager.

An unhappy house

It’s an odd thing to say, but that house in Kenilworth was not a happy house. Whilst I loved Kenilworth itself, and had plenty of good times there, I never really liked that house. Strange things used to happen there.

Little things lost would be found days later, in the most obvious places – absurd things like a toilet roll holder, which turned up the week after in the middle of the bathroom floor. My stereo would whisper and hiss for some time after it was switched off. We were burgled in broad daylight, the dog emerging cowed at the top of the stairs when we got home and found everything in disarray.

My mum and stepdad’s relationship broke down while we were there. But he didn’t move out so we had to walk through ‘his’ rooms to get to ours, which was very uncomfortable.

One day, a woman appeared at the front door and told my mum the house was cursed. She said she’d fallen down the (very steep) stairs while she was living there, and her partner had fallen down a hole nearby and died.

I met one of my best friends from school recently, who I hadn’t seen for a while. He’s certainly the most practical and sensible of all my friends and he worked for years in the car industry. He visited our house in Kenilworth a few times and admitted how much he hadn’t liked it. He confessed he’d always thought it was us, our family, who caused the troubled aura. But then, when we moved to a new home, he started coming round all the time. He realised it hadn’t been us. It was the house.

Do you know a troubled house?

So that’s how the setting for The Man in the Woods came about. I put together a beautiful wood and a house which, despite its idyllic location, I honestly never liked. It felt like the perfect match for my sinister story.

I’m still inclined to think that the feel of that house was more to do with the troubled relationships in it, and that there was some practical explanation to the weird little things that happened. After all, it’s just possible that a dog could have got hold of a toilet roll holder and played with it for a while before dropping it a few days later in the bathroom. But despite that, I keep an open mind. Perhaps there really was something bad that had happened there, something sinister that seeped into the walls.

I’d be really interested to hear if you have any similar stories of a house with a troubled personality, or of any other troubled places? Let me know in the comments below.

If you’d like to read The Man in the Woods, here’s the link:

(Incidentally, there’s a poem about that period of my childhood in my collection, The Things We Thought Were Beautiful – you’ll know which one it is when you see it, the title gives it away!)

The Man in the Woods is out now!

I’m excited to tell you my latest book, a chilling psychological novella called The Man in the Woods, is out now!

The blurb is limited on this one, as I don’t want to give too much away:

Who is… The Man in the Woods?

The woods are deep and dark and cold and empty…

… except for a solitary boy, out riding his bike…

… and a lone wanderer…

And a lone wanderer, The Man in the Woods

What will happen when their paths cross?

Whatever it is, things will never be the same again.

The Man in the Woods chilling psychological thriller out now!

The Man in the Woods is available on Amazon, in paperback and Kindle editions – or read for free on Kindle Unlimited! Click below for more details and to read an excerpt:

Author redundancy alert!

I was playing around with the new AI language tool, ChatGPT, recently. I wondered how it would do if I asked it to generate an author bio for a ghost story writer. That’s all the detail I gave it and at once it produced this, which I’ve tailored with my name and books only. You can see why UK universities are currently scrambling to work out how to assess students, when it produces reasonable essays on pretty much anything ranging from the causes of WW1 to Brexit.

And, whilst a bit wonky, it sounds relatively human. I asked it to write me a poem about wrens and it was reasonable – not brilliant, probably not even good, but not doggerel either. I checked it wasn’t plagiarised on Google and of course, it wasn’t.

So, how long before it’s writing a 60,000 long ghost story full of creepy twists and turns? Not long, I suspect. Especially with a good human (at least for now) editor. This thing is learning fast, helped by useful free fodder such as myself, helping it with the nuances of language. And that really is the key – I suspect it’s rapidly learning things that take novelists years, if not decades, to discover and refine.

My hope is that human creativity will always pip AI. We know the world, we experience pain and beauty unmediated by all except our senses. And we use that to innovate. I like to believe Nick Cave’s response when a fan sent him ChatGPT mimicry of his lyrics.

But I’m no technologist. It’s possible that in a few decades, whilst ChatGPT will never know who we are, it might well be able to replicate books that we’re unable to distinguish from those written by real people. The first article I read about ChatGPT was by a seasoned journalist who was seriously discomforted by its attempt to produce something similar to her writing. 

Have you tried ChatGPT yet? What are your thoughts?

In the meantime, remember that horror helps build your resilience, always useful when we’re faced with a future straight out the Terminator – so why not grab my latest ghost story, Alice and the Devil, now?

Alice and the Devil

Click below to view on Amazon:

The Mysterious Rocks that inspired Alice & the Devil

Alice and the Devil - Jackson's Rocks

Alice and the Devil, my third ghost story in The Ghosts of Alice series, is set in the Peak District in the English midlands. Alice is working remotely in her boss’s cottage on the moors, hoping the peacefulness and distance will help her recover from the trauma of Peacehaven. But then a boy arrives and pleads for her help, claiming his grandfather is being terrorised by the Devil. Everything is going to take a big turn for the worse…

As a writer, I’m always rooting about for inspiration. For the last few years I’ve been holidaying in the Peaks with my family. I knew it was just a matter of time before the bleak moors took their place in one of my ghost stories. But it was the discovery of the ancient and mysterious Rowtor Rocks that finally sealed the setting for Alice and the Devil.

Alice and the Devil - Clay's cave inspiration
Alice and the Devil - Jackson's Rocks inspiration

Metamorphosed into Jackson’s Rocks in the book, I drew on the story of Thomas Eyre, a Reverend who was fascinated by local tales of witchcraft and pagans doing rituals on the rocks. Eyre had a band of workers carve features – seats, symbols, entrances – into the ancient slabs of limestone.

In Alice and the Devil, the Rev. Horace Clay has similar features carved on to Jackson’s Rocks, including a small amphitheatre. And he takes his occult practice one big step further into darkness – with devastating implications for Alice two centuries later…

Alice and the Devil - Clay's cave escape passage!
Rowtor Rocks

Rowtor Rocks is a special place. I urge you to visit if you ever find yourself in the Peaks.

Click below to find out more about Alice and the Devil on Amazon:

Alice and the Devil – Cover Reveal!

Here’s the cover of my forthcoming book, Alice & the Devil!

Alice & the Devil - cover

The story is set in the Peak District and starts amid a raging thunderstorm. A boy stumbles across the bleak moors, intent on reaching the Right House. It’s a place he’s been told he’ll find help against visitations from the most terrifying of all supernatural beings – the Devil himself.

And who’s staying in the Right House? You guessed it. Alice Deaton, the woman with a unique ability to understand the dead.

Alice and the Devil is the third standalone book in The Ghosts of Alice series. Out this Halloween, if not sooner…

Check out the other titles below:

The Origins of the Tirthas…

My new novella, Swift – The Story of a Witch, heads back in time to tell the tale of the mysterious origins of the Tirthas and of the even more mysterious woman who finds them…

The origins of The Secret of the Tirthas

So, for the first time in 4 years, there’s a new chapter in my fantasy adventure series, The Secret of the Tirthas! Here’s more on how I came to write it:

Creating a world…

Building a world with a supernatural element that can sustain a whole series of books is a complex process. This is true even when that world is mostly the same as ours, and involves only a few differences – in my case, the Astral Realm and Tirthas, or portals, with all the strange beings they contain. Before I began writing The City of Light, I wrote an intricate explanation of how the Tirthas were created, involving an ‘umbilical’ cord from the original landmass, Pangaia, to the Astral Realm, tectonic shift, and more ‘modern’ ideas such as ley lines.

I created a backstory going back centuries to how the demons and other supernatural characters were created in the mythical plane of the Astral Realm. From here, they could come down on to earth via the Tirthas and wreak havoc (or whatever else they felt like doing!) On top of this, there was the obscure ‘summons’ of the place known only as the Unknown Realms, which exerted its strange pull on these beings. (The Unknown Realms seemed a good metaphor at the time for the fading away of a more mysterious, religious view of the world – although I’m not sure that’s fading at all now!)

It all necessitated a long timeline involving the main characters and their ancestors, and explaining which had magical natures, and what it meant for them.

A mysterious woman appears…

One of the most interesting of these characters was Hattie Swift, a distant relative of Lizzie’s, who plays a small but vital role in the series. Hattie turns up out of nowhere at the village pub one night in a summer storm . She’s derided as a witch by the locals – but thanks to one man, a Quaker, she finds the safety and space to explore the magical woodland glade through which she entered the world. And soon Hattie discovers the fantastic portals that exist there, in what will become the garden of rooms Lizzie explores a century later. But alongside wonders, her discovery leads her into great – and potentially mortal – peril…

So grab your copy on Amazon now to read Hattie’s story and discover the origins of the tirthas…

Swift – The Story of a Witch: Out Now!

Swift - The Story of a Witch out now

I’m excited to announce that my latest book, Swift – The Story of a Witch, is out now!

It’s a double first for me – my first novella, and my first prequel. It’s the story of the mysterious woman who created the garden of portals that Lizzie explores in The Secret of the Tirthas. Here’s what it’s about:

When she materialises in a woodland glade, Hattie Swift knows she’s special, a witch from beyond this world. But why is she here?

A chance encounter with an honest man leads to marriage and a new life in the cottage by the magical glade where she entered the world. She begins to create a garden and uncover the mysterious portals hidden there.

But soon she finds the terrifying creatures that exist through the portals, including the fearsome Jiangshi and worse. Will she live long enough to discover her fate? And at what cost to her husband and family?

Swift – The Story of a Witch is an action-packed prequel to The Secret of the Tirthas fantasy-adventure series, in which the origins of the magical garden of portals is revealed…

Get your copy now!

Swift – The Story of a Witch: Cover Reveal

Today I’m revealing the cover of my forthcoming book, Swift – The Story of a Witch. It’s a prequel novella to The Secret of the Tirthas fantasy-adventure series and it’s… pretty different to most of what I’ve written so far.

Swift - The Story of a Witch: The Secret of the Tirthas prequel

Here’s a few facts about it:

– at just over 100 pages, it’s my shortest book yet – but that doesn’t mean it won’t pack a powerful punch!

– it takes place 130 years before Lizzie moves to Rowan Cottage with her mum in The City of Light (Book 1 of The Secret of the Tirthas)

– it’s told in the first person, from the point of view of a witch who materialises in a woodland glade – a place that is to become the magical garden of portals in the series

– it’s got some scary, non-human villains, a couple of whom you’ll have already met if you’ve read The Secret of the Tirthas

– it’s got a higher ‘magic setting’ than the rest of the series – this witch can throw a lightning bolt out of her fingertip!

– whilst it’s a prequel to The Secret of the Tirthas, it’s quite different in tone – the main character is a young woman, so it should appeal to older readers too (‘New Adult’ as well as ‘Young Adult’ and, in fact, pretty much any old ‘Adult’!) To draw a cheeky comparison, it’s a bit like the difference between the The Secret Commonwealth and His Dark Materials by one of my heroes, Philip Pullman

– it’s at heart a story about how fate can trick and doom love – and everyone loves a storyline like that, right?

Swift – The Story of a Witch is in final draft and will be out just as soon as I’ve received and checked the proof. Anything between 2-3 weeks!

If you want to catch up on The Secret of the Tirthas in the meantime, the whole series is now available as Box Set on Kindle! Check it out here:

The Magical Garden that inspired The Secret of the Tirthas

At the heart of my adventure mystery series, The Secret of the Tirthas, is a magical ‘garden of hedged rooms’, buried deep in the English countryside. What a lot of people don’t know is that the garden was inspired by a real garden in Herefordshire, owned for a while by my wife’s parents.

Designed and built by a former resident, the one-acre plot had 26 hedged and bordered rooms, filled with fountains and sculptures and themed around special places on the planet – as well as more obscure references such as ‘Miss Day’s Garden’ and ‘Akademia’.

My wife and I spent many happy weeks staying there in the little two-bed cottage, exploring the garden and the fabulous countryside around it. It didn’t take long before the idea for a cluster of portals in the gardens, connecting to the places they represented, came to mind. I copied a few – Easter Island Garden, Gothic Garden, Miss Day’s Garden – and added more of my own (Indian Garden, Rainbow Serpent Garden, Master-of-Nets Garden). And soon overlayered it all with a young girl’s voyage of discovery – of the world, its evil, tortured choices, her father’s true nature – and of herself.

Enjoy all five novels of The Secret of the Tirthas at a bargain price in a new Boxed Set on Kindle (click link below).

Plus… coming soon… a surprise prequel novella to the series, about a witch and the mysterious origins of the garden of rooms… Watch this space!

The Best Ghost Mystery Stories

So you don’t want to sleep tonight, do you?

My final list of books that I’ve prepared for Shepherd.com is the best ghost mystery stories.

best ghost mystery books

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: