The Woman Who Inspired Me To Write

Doris Buttery

 When I was a little girl and, okay, I'll say it first, that was a long time ago, one of my enduring memories is of my mother sitting at the dining room table, her pencil sharpened and busy as she transcribed memories of her childhood onto sheets of lined foolscap paper. 

These were her happy years, spent simply, living in a small rural village called Elford, in Staffordshire. Tamworth was the nearest town and Lichfield the nearest city. Birmingham, lying some twenty miles away, was rarely visited for pleasure. Besides, why would you want to go there when you had everything you needed in the village? Well, until you reached your teens of course, and became hungry for the bright lights and faster pace of life.

Doris with her parents 1930

While Mum wrote, I would play with my dolls or my cat, Penny. I would make up stories, read, let my imagination run free...

And day after day, Mum would write. She took a creative writing course and dabbled in short stories. They were fiction but always, somewhere, there lurked a grain of truth. Invariably set in the 1920s or 1930s - she was born in 1920 - there would be a character I would later come to identify in her memoirs. Sometimes she would write about a scandal that I would later discover had actually taken place - although the names and some identifying details had all been changed.

Doris with her parents and two brothers 1930

I can't remember exactly when she stopped writing. But for years, maybe a decade or more, the pencils and foolscap were put aside only for her to return one day and pick up where she left off. This became a pattern. Days and weeks of daily writing followed by months and years of none.

Meanwhile, I had caught the writing bug. Watching her may have been the catalyst, or perhaps it was simply because she enjoyed it. Whatever the start of it, I was the geeky kid at school who relished writing essays while my schoolfriends groaned at the prospect. Some of those essays grew into short stories, one eventually morphed into a novel. Mum encouraged me while my father considered my desire - at around eight or nine years old - to purchase a portable typewriter as a complete waste of time and money. I bought my typewriter, selling a number of toys in order to do so.

extract from the original handwritten foolscap

Fast forward to 2018. To March of that year to be precise. At the age of 97, my lovely and inspirational Mum passed away peacefully in hospital. I was by her side and she simply slipped away as she always wanted. At her funeral, we celebrated her long life. She wanted no tears.

I found those sheets of foolscap. She had added to them over the years and, reading them through, I knew I had to get them published, The result is An Elford Childhood by Doris Buttery. It is subtitled, Growing up in a Staffordshire Village 1920-1933. 

Minimal editing was required - to eliminate repetition, group certain events and locations together and a bit of tidying up. Apart from that, these are her words as she wrote them and show what a great storyteller she was - with a fine memory. As with her fiction, she had changed many names (almost all in fact) and, while she had created a sheet showing some of the main name changes for identification purposes, she had not extended this to all of them. Luckily, Elford resident and historian Greg Watkins was on hand to help decipher the mystery. Mum was a lifelong lover of crime novels and would have been highly amused at the detective work he and I undertook. I am indebted to him for all the fact-checking and general rooting and digging in archives, the 1921 census and Elford Parish records. I am also indebted to Umbria Press for doing such a fine job - especially with some ancient, faded photographs into which they breathed fresh life.

Most of all though, I am indebted to the author herself. Doris Buttery undoubtedly passed on a lot of gifts to me; her love of writing, reading, and cats being at the forefront. She also enjoyed a ghost story as well as her beloved crime fiction. So do I. Would I have got into writing if I hadn't inherited the love of it from her? We'll never know, but I somehow doubt it.

Doris on her 90th birthday

Doris's story, An Elford Childhood, is published by Umbria Press, available in paperback online and from retail bookshops either on the shelf or to order.

When Doris Buttery was born in the small village of Elford, King George V was on the throne. The First World War had ended less than two years earlier, and women had yet to achieve the vote on equal terms with men.

Growing up with her parents and two older brothers, worldly possessions were few and money was tight for most people in the village, but life was far from dull. With an array of colourful characters, scandals, long-held secrets and the changing seasons, there was plenty to keep an active, inquisitive young girl entertained.

Decades later, Doris picked up her pencil, grabbed some sheets of lined foolscap and began to write down her memories. Then she put them away. Only her daughter knew they existed.

After Doris’s death in 2018, her daughter found the neat folder, opened it and began to read. The years rolled back and the world of a rural community in the 1920s and early ‘30s emerged, fresh from those carefully written pages. It was a world far distant from our own and now it is here, as that young girl remembered it.

An Elford Childhood provides a tantalizing trip back in time to a life lived in a place where the milk came in churns, water had to be pumped and collected, few cars troubled the narrow lanes, and electricity had still to be installed in the house where Doris lived.

Available from:

Amazon

Waterstones 

Bookshop.org (where you can support your favourite local bookshop)

Tamworth Heritage Trust

Foyles

Write Blend

and other High Street bookstores

Spring-Heeled Jack

They seek him here, they seek him there…but Spring-Heeled Jack can turn up anywhere.

Here is a legend that first began in early Victorian England. A man with the apparent ability to leap over walls and capable of turning up anywhere from the Black Country (in the Birmingham, West Midlands area) to Liverpool, Chichester, and London - even a foray to Scotland. Sightings of this fantastical and scary creature grew to a peak in the 1880s – especially in the West Midlands.

So what did he look like? Descriptions vary with the witness, but some characteristics occur more frequently than others. He was alleged to possess a goatee beard and devil’s horns, pointed ears, and flashing eyes of fire. The popular Penny Dreadfuls of the day depicted him looking like a swarthy devil. Another feature common to all sightings was his ability to leap high over hedges, walls, rooftops with complete ease. He terrified his victims by suddenly leaping in front of them, or up behind them.

 In 1855, one report saw him in Old Hill in the West Midlands, where he leaped from the roof of the Cross Inn public house over to the roof of the butcher’s shop across the road. This occurrence was swiftly followed by reports of other sightings in the area and a wave of panic from the local populace.

A period of quiet was followed in 1877 was followed by a whole spate of sightings in Blackheath, Dudley and the Acocks Green area of Birmingham in 1877. Spring-Heeled Jack continued to be active through the 1880s. The Birmingham Post in 1886 reported that: “First a young girl, then a man, felt a hand on their shoulder, and turned to see the infernal one with glowing face, bidding them a good evening.”

 He usually appeared at night and targeted mainly young women. Originally his intention appears to have been to scare rather than cause actual harm to his victims. But before too long, he tired of this tame pursuit and his modus operandi turned from scary to full blown assault. On one occasion, he was said to have been accompanied by companions, all dressed in armour, who attacked a carpenter, ripping his clothes to shred. There was a suggestion in the press that the assailants were a group of, essentially bored, young gentlemen out to get their kicks by frightening people so much they lost their wits. Most of the people prepared to talk to the newspapers about Jack presented mere hearsay. It hadn’t happened to them, but to a friend of a friend.

 The first credible account came from 18-year-old Jane Alsop who, in February of 1838, reported to magistrates that she had been approached by a man dressed in a cloak, near the gate of her home in Bearbinder Lane, near Bow, London. He had asked her to bring a candle as the police had caught Spring-Heeled Jack nearby. She duly did so. He took the candle from her, opened his cloak and she caught sight of his “hideous and frightful appearance”. He then vomited a blue and white flame and his eyes became like “balls of fire”. He wore a helmet and tight-fitting clothes and he began to set about her with metal claws, ripping her dress and tugging out her hair. She managed to escape his clutches when her older sister, hearing her cries, opened the door and dragged her inside before shutting the beast firmly out.

In Limehouse, London, a girl called Lucy Scales, along with a female friend, was accosted by a gaunt man, of seemingly gentlemanly appearance. She was so scared she collapsed in a fit. In this instance, two men were actually brought to court charged with her assault but were released owing to lack of evidence.

 Outside London, Spring-Heeled Jack seems to have toned down his fire-vomiting behaviour in favour of his more athletic accomplishments and, for the rest of the century, it is for this incredible ability to leap to great heights that his fame persisted and spread. 

In 1904, in Liverpool during one of his last appearances, he was reported as leaping over rooftops and bounding down the street. He was even reported as being seen on the rooftop of St Francis Xavier’s Church in Salisbury Street in the Everton district of the city.

By the end of the nineteenth century, his notoriety was such that almost any strange encounter with a swift-footed criminal could result in Spring-Heeled Jack’s name being associated with it. In Edwardian times, his name was quoted to children by parents, to ensure they came home before dark. A convenient and effective bogeyman.

 There were rumours that he was a real person – Henry de la Poer Beresford, the Marquess of Waterford no less, who was certainly in London at the time of the 1830s sightings and was known to be something of a rake at the time, being hauled up before magistrates for drunken, brutish and outlandish behaviour on more than one occasion. However, that wouldn’t account for all the other sightings or the fact that the legend persisted into the twentieth century, with no apparent diminishing of athletic prowess that would be caused by the natural aging process. 

No one was ever convicted of the assaults he is alleged to have committed and some sources at least believe he was capable of the earlier attacks but, following his marriage in 1842, he appears to have led a blameless life. Maybe he had imitators.

These days, Spring-Heeled Jack is once again providing entertainment for the masses, through steampunk literature and appearance in popular TV shows, such as Dr. Who. No doubt, as with most urban myths, there is a grain of truth there somewhere, but rumour, numerous retellings and embellishments have gifted us a larger-than-life character that merely adds to our cornucopia of rich folklore traditions.

Of course… if you are out one dark night and see a strange man leaping over the rooftops,  you may yet prove me wrong…

 (If you want to know more about Spring-heeled Jack, try this book by Dr Karl Bell The Legend of Spring-Heeled Jack)

Images:

Wikipedia

Boydell Press

The Witches of Belvoir Castle

My new novella – The Malan Witch – centres around a haunted cottage – possessed by two of the most evil witches you could ever (not) wish to encounter. At the time these women were alive, witch hunts were in full swing.

At Belvoir Castle, near Grantham, in Lincolnshire, in the early part of the 17th century, the Earl and Countess of Rutland employed a mother – Joan Flower - and her two daughters, Philippa and Margaret. All three were known to be well versed in the art of herbal remedies. The Rutlands were in urgent need of extra domestic help as a visit from King James I was expected. The Flower family didn’t last long there though. They were dismissed amid rumours of theft and other misdemeanours.

Almost immediately after the women left, the Earl and Countess fell ill of vomiting and convulsions. Then their children suffered similarly. Their heir – Henry – died a few weeks later and was buried on 26th September 1613. Francis also fell ill but, thankfully, their daughter, Katherine, recovered. 

By 1616, the thirst for purging witches had reached fever pitch, and nine women were hanged in Leicestershire for crimes committed involving the Black Arts. They had been accused of bewitching a young boy who subsequently died. These witches owned animals, known as ‘familiars’, said to assist them in their devil’s work, casting spells and other mischief. The Flower women also possessed a cat – called Rutterkin – who was to play a significant role in subsequent events.

The Rutlands’ second son, Francis, died and, in 1618, a full five years after Henry had passed away, the Flower women were arrested on charges relating to witchcraft in connection with his death. All protested their innocence, but were taken away to be ‘examined’. Following this, they were sent to Lincoln Gaol, where they were due to be incarcerated until their trial. On the way there, Joan Flower, who did not attend church, requested a piece of bread, in lieu of Eucharist. She said it would prove her innocence, as surely no true witch would be able to eat something so pure and holy. She took a bite, choked on it and died.

Needless to say, the women undoubtedly suffered horrific torture. That era was notorious for the creativity employed in extracting confessions from people. A visit to any crime museum will reveal implements such as the boot (which crushed feet and ankles), the scold’s bridle (complete with spikes to pierce the victim’s mouth), needles to pierce nails and pincers to pull those same nails out. Food and sleep deprivation and beatings with chains added to the sadistic and horrific menu.

Margaret Flower eventually accused her - now deceased - mother of witchcraft. Philippa admitted she was a witch – and accused her mother and Margaret. The sisters both confessed to consorting with ‘familiar spirits’ to assist them in their schemes. And this is where their mother’s cat – Rutterkin- came in. The sisters said they stole the glove of Henry, the Rutlands’ heir and gave it to Joan. She dipped it in boiling water, stroked it along Rutterkin’s back and chanted incantations which caused the boy to fall ill. To ensure the Earl and Countess couldn’t have any more children and, therefore, remained without an heir, the women had cast a spell, using feathers from the Earl’s bed and a pair of gloves which they boiled and then mixed with blood.

The two sisters also accused others of being witches. Anne Baker, Joan Willimot and Ellen Greene were arrested, ‘examined’ and then, unsurprisingly, ‘confessed’ to practicing witchcraft.

Margaret and Philippa Flower were tried and found guilty. They were hanged in Lincoln Castle on 11th March 1619.

The Earl and Countess remained convinced - to their dying days - that their eldest son had been killed by witchcraft. On their monument, as part of the inscription, are these words:

There has been recent speculation that Joan Flower and her daughters were framed by none other than the infamous George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham and favourite of King James I. The story goes that Villiers had designs on the Rutlands’ daughter, Katherine. He planned to marry her and - with both her brothers dead - inherit the title. He achieved his ambition to marry the girl on 16th May 1620, much to her father’s disapproval.

Fortunately this unpleasant and arrogant man did not achieve his ultimate ambition. He did not become the next Earl of Rutland. He died in 1628, four years before his father in law. At least some justice prevailed in this sorry saga!

'Naught remained of their bodies to be buried, for the crows took back what was theirs.’ 

An idyllic coastal cottage near a sleepy village. What could be more perfect? For Robyn Crowe, borrowing her sister’s recently renovated holiday home for the summer seems just what she needs to deal with the grief of losing her beloved husband.

But behind those pretty walls lie many secrets, and legends of a malevolent sisterhood - two witches burned for their evil centuries earlier. Once, both their vile spirits were trapped there. Now, one has been released. One who is determined to find her sister. Only Robyn stands in her way.

And the crow has returned.

You can order The Malan Witch here: 

Amazon

Enter the Undead World of Dominic DeChance - and Win!

If you have never read David Niall Wilson's DeChance Chronicles, now is the time to put that right. The first four volumes are available in omnibus edition and the fifth - A Midnight Dreary - will help ease the pangs of withdrawal once you have finished it. If you love tales of the fantastic, magic, sorcery, the undead and dragons, enter the incredible,multi-dimensional world of Dominic DeChance...

About the books:

Donovan DeChance is a collector of ancient manuscripts and books, a practicing mage, and a private investigator. This Omnibus Collection includes books I, II, III, and IV of the series. Included are Heart of a Dragon, Vintage Soul, My Soul to Keep (The Origin story of Donovan DeChance) and Kali's Tale. 

Also included are the bonus novellas The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs & The Currently Accepted Habits of Nature, and The Preacher's Marsh, both of which provide background on settings and characters that appear in Kali's Tale. 

If you enjoy this book, you should read Nevermore, A Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe, which follows on Kali's Tale, has a cameo from Donovan DeChance, and leads into Book V - A Midnight Dreary

  Heart of a Dragon 

When a local houngan begins meddling with powers she may not be able to control, a turf war breaks out between the Dragons motorcycle club and the Los Escorpiones street gang—a war that threatens to open portals between worlds and destroy the city in the process. With his lover, Amethyst, his familiar, Cleo – an Egyptian Mau the size of a small bobcat –the dubious aid of a Mexican sorcerer named Martinez and the budding gifts of a young artist named Salvatore, DeChance begins a race against time, magic, and almost certain death.

 Vintage Soul

When, despite the finest in natural and supernatural security, a sexy and well-loved, three hundred year old lady vampire is kidnapped right out from under her lover's nose, Donovan is called in to investigate. There will be no ransom for the kidnap victim, and if Donovan doesn't prevent an ancient, forbidden ritual from reaching its culmination, far more than a single vampire's undead existence will be at stake.

 My Soul to Keep

Donovan DeChance is a very private man, and he is in love. When he invites his partner and lover, Amethyst, for a quiet dinner, she has no idea of his true intention. Donovan has planned a sharing - a vision that will give her the keys to his early life - the origins of his power - and a lot more than she bargained for. Join young Donovan as he fights to keep his soul, save a town, and learn the roots of his teacher and guardian - and meet his familiar, Cleo.

Here is an excerpt, from Chapter Six:

Cleo and the Nightmare 

The carriage shuddered as the door closed behind Donovan.  He gripped the doorframe from the inside and rode it out.  He knew the creature harnessed to the front was aware of him.  He didn't think it could release itself from the harness, and he didn't think it could get to him as long as he was inside the carriage.  What he was afraid of was that it would raise enough of a fuss to alert its master.  Whatever was going on inside the saloon had everyone busy for the moment, but how long could it last?

He glanced around him and got the lay of the strange vehicle.  There were no windows, for one thing.  He'd never seen a carriage with no windows for the passenger to peer out through.  There was a single seat, dead center, and it was oddly placed and sized.  It didn't seem as though a man could sit in that seat comfortably.  His feet would dangle off the floor, and the angle of the back was very rigid.  There was no upholstery.  The seat was the same hard, black polished wood as the carriage exterior.  He studied it for only a moment, and then began scanning the rest of the vehicle's interior. 

The light was dim, but he found that his eyes had adjusted well enough.  He saw there were several doors in the back wall of the chamber, and he went to them quickly.  He opened the first.  He saw a row of books and small cases, an array of pouches, cups, and braziers, and a dagger in a long, slender leather sheath.  He had no idea what he was looking for, but nothing in this cabinet called out to him, and he felt that whatever held Silkstone's "power" would leap out at him – that he would know it.

He opened the right-hand cabinet that stood farthest from the wall.  He thought, maybe, that what he sought would be there, because it was the farthest, and so the most protected.  This door hid blankets, clothing, candles, and a variety of odd grooming implements that Donovan neither recognized, nor understood. None of it seemed important.  Not in the way that the boy, Bones, had intimated.

He stood before the center door for a moment.  There was a bumping sound, and his heart nearly stopped.  He stumbled to his feet, and could not, in that second, tell whether the sound came from before him, behind him, inside or outside the carriage.  He cried out then, abandoning caution, and flung the center door open wide.  There was a low growl, something warm, soft, and heavy launched from the cabinet's interior and struck him dead in the center of his chest.  He gasped and closed his eyes, certain he'd breathed his last, but when nothing further happened, he opened his eyes and stared.

On his legs, staring at him intently, was a cat. It made no move to escape, nor did it attack.  It was almost as if it were waiting for him to speak, or to make the first move.  He sat up slowly.  The cat didn't budge, and a moment later, they were face to face, the cat on his lap as he sat, facing the open cabinet behind it.

"Move on now," he said softly.  "I have to find something, and there's not much time."

He picked the animal up gently and placed it on the floor beside him.  Then he dropped forward to his knees and peered into the interior of the cabinet.  There were three jars inside that were filled with something dark and grainy, like dirt – or sand.  Behind them, there was another row of similar jars stretching so far to either side that they disappeared into the shadowy compartment's interior.  In front of all of it sat what appeared to be a brass clock.  It had a glass dome covering its works, and inside were four heavy brass balls that spun back and forth slowly, beating like a heart.

He glanced at the jars, but his gaze was drawn back, again and again, to the ticking, mesmerizing motion of the clock.  Could that be it?  Could it be that simple?  Was it – in fact – simple, if time itself was involved?

Donovan leaned forward and reached for the clock.  The cat, watching intently from where he'd placed it at his side, leaped.  It crashed into his hand, and instead of touching the clock, he struck the one of the front three jars.  It tilted, wavered for a moment, and then spun out of the cabinet.  Donovan tried to catch it, but he was too slow.  It crashed to the floor and shattered.  He cursed, started to turn to the cat, and then cried out as something spewed from the broken jar, whirling and filling the air with a dark miasma of grit, sand, dust, and something more.  There was sound, like a long, agonized scream.  Donovan fell back, and the force, ignoring him, whirled in the air and battered at the carriage door.  It struck once, recoiled, and then with an incredible burst of power, shot straight through the wood.   The door exploded outward in a wash of splinters and shards.  The horse reared and the carriage tilted up on two wheels.

Donovan tried to stand, but the jerk of the carriage swept him off his feet again and he tumbled back.  The cat, caught off guard, also tumbled.  Without thinking, Donovan reached out, caught it, and tucked it against his chest as jars tumbled from the cabinet, crashing against one another, into the floor and against the walls, and jostling the clock.   Each time one of the jars was broken, the screaming, whirling grit filling the carriage increased in volume and power, driving Donovan against the back of the strangely designed seat.

The cat dug its claws into his shirt, but not his skin.  It clung tightly, and Donovan curled around it protectively.  As he did, he felt an odd sensation creep over him.  His own screams quieted, and his mind, which had threatened to spiral out of control into darkness, or madness, calmed.  He glanced up carefully and took in the small space with new clarity.  He saw the clock.  It teetered, and somehow, just in time, he realized that he could not allow it to fall, or to break.  He didn't know why, but he knew he had to protect it, as he protected the cat, and that he had to get it out of that carriage. Without any further thought, he acted.

It wasn't easy.  Whatever was breaking free of the jars was powerful.  It was also angry, and he was the only thing in range.  He sensed he was not a target, but that this did not mean there was no danger.  He plastered himself to the far edge of the carriage from the door and began, very slowly, to work his way around to the cabinet once more.  Not all of the jars had broken open, and though the carriage still shivered and shook now and then, the horse seemed to have realized its mistake and quieted.  Something in Donovan's mind made him bypass the clock once more.  He ripped at the jars.  He drew them forth and flung them out the door of the carriage, hearing them explode and scream and feeling the buffeting power of whatever – whoever, he thought – was escaping. 

He didn't stop until the cabinet was free of everything but the clock.  Then he reached for it again, but the cat – once again – knocked his hand aside.  He turned toward it and glared.

"I have to get it out of here," he said.  "I…"

The animal leaped past him to the first cabinet he'd opened.  It scrabbled inside, dragging things free with its paws in a mad scramble, until a dark, folded sheet of silk spilled free.  It spun, claws piercing the material, and leaped back to Donovan, though the silk was nearly torn free by the escaping energy.  It was lessening.  With the final jars tossed free of the carriage, and the dust whirling up and out and away, the sound, and the power that had blasted Donovan's senses was dying toward silence.  He wanted the clock in his hand and his feet on solid ground before that silence was complete, though again, he had no idea why he wanted it.

He took the silk as the cat backed away, watching him again with bright, glittering eyes.  This was another thing he was going to have to look into shortly.  In his limited experience of cats – they did not communicate on a human level.  They did not save people from killing themselves over magical clocks.  They did not dig around in cabinets.  He didn't allow himself to question it, or even think about it.  He knew he had only moments, and he acted. 

He slipped the silk over the clock, wrapped it tightly, and lifted.  It was heavy, and he nearly lost his grip as it slid off the shelf, but he grunted, dug in his nails, and managed to lower it to the floor.  He quickly knotted the silk about it, being careful to cover every inch of the brass and glass.  Then, thinking it might be important to have his hands free, he knotted the loose ends of the silk tightly to his belt.  It banged against his hip as he moved.  There was a walking stick by the door.  It was topped by a black stone.  He grabbed it and clutched it tightly, thinking it would make a decent club, and he had no other weapon.

He jumped down from the carriage to the ground, and he turned toward the saloon.  In that moment, the horse struck.  It spun, tilting the carriage and ignoring the weight pulling on it.  Its eyes flamed and its jaws were open wide.  With a screech of rage it lunged.  Before it could strike, a blur of spotted fury launched from the interior of the carriage.  It struck the horse on the side the head, clung, and its claws dug into the soft skin of the snout, and the nearest eye.  Donovan cried out and fell back.  The carriage tilted, teetered, and then toppled over, dragging the horse back with it.  The cat leaped free, landing at Donovan's feet. 

Before either of them could move – the back door of the saloon blew outward and darkness poured out after it.  Through the sound, somehow, Donovan heard Rathman's voice. Or maybe, he thought, he heard the words in his mind.

"Run, boy!  For God's sake run."

He scrambled to his feet, gathered up the cat in his arms, and did as he was told.

  

 Kali's Tale

When Donovan is asked to follow in secret as a hot-headed group of young vampires set out on a 'blood quest' to kill the ancient who created the young vampire Kali against her will, he learns that - as usual - there is a lot more to the story than meets the eye. Through the juke joints of Beale Street in Memphis, to the depths of The Great Dismal Swamp, Donovan and his lover and partner, Amethyst, find themselves drawn along on one of the strangest quests in their long, enigmatic lives as they delve into the world of the undead, the magic of The Blues, and the very heart of alchemy both to protect their young, vampiric charges - and to prevent an ancient evil from destroying the balance of power in the universe.

 A Midnight Dreary

The long-awaited fifth volume in The DeChance Chronicles, picks up outside Old Mill, NC, when Donovan, reminded that he has promised his lover, Amethyst, and Geoffrey Bullfinch of the O.C.L.T. a story, draws them back in time to a vision of the final chapter of the novel Nevermore, a Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe. At vision's end, they realize that they have to act, to free Eleanor MacReady from the trap that holds her on the banks of Lake Drummond, in the Great Dismal Swamp.

These novels directly cross over to the original series O.C.L.T. - where Donovan is a sometime consultant. It features appearances by Geoffrey Bullfinch and Rebecca York, O.C.L.T. agents, as well as Old Mill, North Carolina's own Cletus J. Diggs.

  Your chance to win!

(1) Ten dollar Starbucks Card and a David N. Wilson Book Collection, and (5) Books from the author, winner's choice
https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/9751c04220/ 

My Review of Heart of a Dragon:

The fantastical happens every day to Dominic DeChance, but then he is no ordinary Private Investigator. He can see things others can't and move where they are unable to. He is part of the other-world that co-exists with the world as we know it.

The story begins with a motor bike roaring into life. A  gang war between two rival factions - The Dragons and Los Escorpiones. But this is no West Side Story and these are no ordinary gangs. Supernatural forces are at work and only someone with DeChance's special powers and abilities can stop the mayhem that threatens the very fabric of existence.

This was a great adventure complete with dragons, timebends, voyages into other-worldly dimensions and plenty to make this reader want to keep reading the subsequent books in the series. 

Purchase links: 

DECHANCE CHRONICLES OMNIBUS

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

A MIDNIGHT DREARY

Barnes and Noble 

 Amazon