Coming Out in 2026... And a Few Reflections on 2025

 It promises to be a busy year, with a new novella in February and a novel in August.

Matilda's Retreat

The house kept its secrets – until someone disturbed it

Alone and isolated on a windswept moor, the centuries’ old building had seen its fair share of owners and more than its quota of dark legends when Lynn Schofield and her husband visited their friends there. From the moment they cross the threshold, it’s clear there is something very wrong here. Behind the walls is a house unlike any other and the horrors it has witnessed are embedded in its very fabric, ready and waiting for the next victim.

Decades later, another couple own the now ruinous house. For Diana, her initial reluctance to move in soon takes a leap forward when she sees something that shouldn’t be there. But as major renovations proceed – and the library starts to reveal its secrets – her mounting fears prove to be only the beginning of her nightmare.

Soon, she will discover the legends of Matilda’s Retreat are not consigned to the annals of history, as her life changes forever.

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Ghosts of Chanterlands

“You don’t belong here. None of you do. None but us….”

1940. Pamela Courtney is evacuated to Chanterlands – the home of her aunts: Jilly, the eccentric one, who dreams of her days as a star of the silver screen, and Bunny, the pragmatic one.

But Chanterlands is home to more than just the living. There’s the spectral lonely boy in whose room Pamela sleeps, and, in the long-neglected attic, she discovers a sinister secret of this once-great house. But greater danger awaits Pamela during that summer long ago when war raged all over Europe and the safety her mother had wished for her took a dark and fatal turn.

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Flame Tree Press

Simon and Schuster

2025 has been a year of ups and downs for so many people. I know many of you have been battling serious illness, or have had to watch those you care deeply about suffer through them. In some ways, seeing someone you love in pain, and being helpless to do anything to relieve it, is worse - and I say that as someone who has been on both sides of that fence over the years. If you recognize yourself here, please know that I send you all my heartfelt sympathy and best wishes. I hope 2026 will be kinder to you and those you count as friends and family.

But this year has also had its joys. To those of you who have welcomed new family members, new lovers, partners, animals, exciting new jobs/opportunities/publishing contracts et al - all power to you. May 2026 see the good stuff come to fruition.

Most of all, I wish you all peace - of mind and body - time to pause and reflect on the good things, and hope. For, without hope what are we? Never lose hope. It may all turn out differently from what you expected or wished for, but a positive mental attitude (coupled with a healthy dose of sheer bloodymindedness) will give you the ammunition you need to keep on fighting. I know. I've been there. And, guess what? I'm still here!

Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays and may 2026 bring you peace and joy.

The Ghost That Joined The Tour

 

My novel – In Darkness, Shadows Breathe – spends a significant amount of time in the frighteningly haunted Royal and Waverley Hospital whose walls conceal many dark secrets. Although a fairly modern hospital, my creation is built on land formerly occupied by a hospital, asylum and workhouse and is fairly typical in this. Many of today’s hospitals had multiple functions in their past – or are built on the foundations of earlier institutions whose practices would not be considered appropriate in this day and age.

Liverpool’s Newsham Park Hospital shares this murky heritage. Situated not far from the city centre, this crumbling and derelict building once housed an orphanage, hospital wards, a Bell Tower, an attic lined with 18 punishment cupboards where children who misbehaved would be incarcerated alone in the pitch dark, a schoolhouse, mortuary, nurses’ accommodation and chapel. 

Built in 1869, it variously served as an Orphanage, Psychiatric Hospital and finally an Old People’s Home before closing and being finally abandoned in 1992 when it quickly fell into disrepair. Plans to redevelop it into flats fell through, owing to local opposition, but, since then, stories began to circulate. Strange ghostly phenomena were reported. It wasn’t long before word got around and numerous haunted event companies began organising night-time vigils and trips around its desolate corridors that are still littered with broken beds, commodes, wheelchairs, peeling walls and tons of rubbish and detritus – a kind of decrepit Marie Celeste of the medical world.

One of these event companies is Haunted Happenings. Newsham Park is a regular venue for them, and Philip Barron is one of their most experienced ghost hunters and guides. In more than twenty trips around the former hospital, he had witnessed his fair share of the unusual and unexplained and become accustomed to the many individual different experiences members of the same party might report But, on one fateful night, something happened that he had no way of explaining. It all started when, at the beginning of the all-night vigil, the group posed for the obligatory photograph.

Image: Phil Barron

The vigil passed off spookily as usual. Everyone had a great time and went home satisfied.

The next morning, Philip uploaded the photograph – again, as usual. What happened next wasn’t usual. Have a look at the above photograph. See it? There were all the smiling, happy faces. The problem was there was one too many smiling faces. No one – and I mean no one – remembered the additional member of the group, a smiling girl. She wasn’t on the tour, well, not officially anyway. Maybe she had somehow sneaked in, and gained entry for free. Except...the simple fact was, she lacked substance somehow. Now, have another look:

Image: Phil Barron

The photograph went viral. The team tried to find a logical explanation and failed. Equally no one else has come up with one either. It remains one of the many mysteries of the stubbornly haunted Newsham Park Hospital.

Maybe she’s one of the former orphans, or a nurse from its psychiatric hospital days – maybe a patient. Whoever she is, she doesn’t seem too upset by being there.

The mystery ghost joins an ever-expanding collection of phenomena that includes: mischievous poltergeist activity such as workmen’s tools being moved and objects being disturbed when essential work was being carried out on the premises, the sighting of a small child in the attic along with voices heard coming from there, shadowy figures seen in one of the former wards, dragging noises coming from the former dining room, eerie screams and crying coming from the basement and other parts of the building. Then, there’s the overall heavy feeling of dread experienced by many visitors from the minute they cross the threshold. Only to be expected, I would have thought!

Want to see more? Here’s a clip to whet your appetite:

https://youtu.be/mC30MpVymkM

You’re next…

Carol and Nessa are strangers, but not for much longer.

In a luxury apartment and in the walls of a modern hospital, the evil that was done continues to thrive. They are in the hands of an entity that knows no boundaries and crosses dimensions – bending and twisting time itself – and where danger waits in every shadow. The battle is on for their bodies and souls and the line between reality and nightmare is hard to define.

Through it all, the words of Lydia Warren Carmody haunt them. But who was she? And why have Carol and Nessa been chosen?

The answer lies deep in the darkness…

Amazon

Waterstones

Flame Tree Press 

Barnes & Noble

Bookshop.org

Simon & Schuster

and other outlets, online and in the High Street

(With thanks to Phil Barron for kind permission to use the Newsham Park Ghost photograph. You can follow Phil on: Instagram: @philip.barron TikTok; @barron2511 Facebook: Phil Barron)

Other images:

Flame Tree Press Studio

Shutterstock

Matilda's Retreat - The House from Hell

 

The house kept its secrets – until someone disturbed it

Alone and isolated on a windswept moor, the centuries’ old building had seen its fair share of owners and more than its quota of dark legends when Lynn Schofield and her husband visited their friends there. From the moment they cross the threshold, it’s clear there is something very wrong here. Behind the walls is a house unlike any other and the horrors it has witnessed are embedded in its very fabric, ready and waiting for the next victim.

Decades later, another couple own the now ruinous house. For Diana, her initial reluctance to move in soon takes a leap forward when she sees something that shouldn’t be there. But as major renovations proceed – and the library starts to reveal its secrets - her mounting fears prove to be only the beginning of her nightmare.

Soon, she will discover the legends of Matilda’s Retreat are not consigned to the annals of history, as her life changes forever.

 

There's something about a lonely house, situated on a bleak and windswept moor. It conjures up images of a kind of timeless desolation where everything is possible, only restricted by the limits of our imaginations. Seasons change, lives come and go, yet the elements continue. The cycles of wind, rain, sun, snow... Nature's routine, relentlessly repeating itself. Such is the landscape of this house. Its blessing and its curse is to remain there, standing sentinel, steeped in the imprint of all it has witnessed.

Until someone else moves in...

Matilda's Retreat

published by Crossroad Press on 10th February 2026

Available now for pre-order from:

These online outlets

 

Swansong for Quintillus?

 

Dr. Emeryk Quintillus. 

Alive or dead, he is my favourite. Of all the villains I have created over the years, he is the one that has stayed with me the longest and in the most vivid of ways. I have dreamt about him, almost seen him out of the corner of my eye on scary occasions and, when I have been writing about him, he has haunted both my waking and sleeping hours. So when it came to penning the last in the trilogy that began with Wrath of the Ancients, the task was bittersweet for sure.

But it wasn't meant to be like this.

There was never supposed to be a trilogy. Wrath of the Ancients was written as a standalone novel. It was the original publisher that demanded a series of at least three books, and, as a result, the Nemesis of the Gods trilogy was born.

Fast forward some nine years later and here I am again. Bidding him farewell in this latest incarnation of Damned by the Ancients. A cat and a child feature prominently here. The cat, though, is no pussycat. Just thought I would warn you in case you are tempted to pick her up.

Is this really Quintillus's swansong? I couldn't possibly say. 

I shall leave that for the gods to decide...

Dare to defy the gods and you will pay the price…

 Vienna, 1908 – Quintillus, brings Gabriele Ziegler to the studio of Gustav Klimt. The artist will paint the troubled girl as Cleopatra, with whom Quintillus is infatuated, but the painting is cursed and the girl is possessed by the spirit of Cleopatra’s long-dead sister, the vengeful Arsinoe.

Now Arsinoe and Quintillus begin their unholy alliance.

Vienna 2018 – nine-year-old Heidi Mortimer can see things others cannot. Her almost cat-like vision enables her to see the mysterious man in the basement. He asks for her help but her parents will not believe her. Yet in the basement, Quintillus is trapped, but not for long. He knows the little girl will help him.

Whatever the cost.

“Gothic historical settings that grab you and hurl you back to the past.” Book Nook Retreat

You can find Damned by the Ancients here:

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Kobo

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and other online and high street retailers

Images:

Crossroad Press

Shutterstock