Live and Spooky 2021 - Halloween Hijinks from Flame Tree

 

Polish up your crystal balls, stir that cauldron, and dust off that broomstick

It's THAT time of the year!

A whole bunch of Flame Tree authors (me included) and friends, lined up to entertain you with a veritable punchbowl of assorted scary fun

Join us for fantastical creatures, creepy stories, out-of-this-world scares and much, much more...

You can catch us all now:

THE HELLISH HELTER SKELTER

Fascinating fireside tales from some of today’s top short story writers featuring John Everson, Dan Coxon, Gwendolyn Kiste, Lucy A. Snyder, and Maria Haskins.

Watch on You Tube

THE GHASTLY GHOST TRAIN

Creature creation with master storytellers Hunter Shea, Glenn Rolfe, Jonathan Janz and Gregory Bastianelli.

Watch on You Tube

THE WICKED WHITE-KNUCKLE RIDE

Drawing inspiration from real-life stories with otherworldly authors Tim Waggoner, J.H. Moncrieff, Catherine Cavendish and Steven Hopstaken & Melissa Prusi.

Watch on You Tube

THE HIDEOUS HALL OF MIRRORS

Aliens, otherworlds, the apocalypse, horror in space! A chilling chat with spooky sci-fi scribes Brian Pinkerton, Daniel Bensen, Anne Tibbetts and J.D. Moyer.

Watch on You Tube

THE SPINE-CHILLING CAROUSEL

Female Leads & Final Girl Tropes: a breakout panel to highlight the evolution of fearsome female leads with the devilishly talented Anne Tibbets, Catherine Cavendish, V. Castro and Nadia Afifi.

Watch on You Tube

THE FEARSOME FERRIS WHEEL

A chilling conversation between genre luminaries Ramsey Campbell & S.T. Joshi, covering Lovecraft, Stoker, roots and directions in horror writing.

Watch on You Tube

THE TERRIFYING TUNNEL OF LOVE - LIVE!

An infernal live-to-air interview with leading critic and influencer Sadie ‘Mother Horror’ Hartmann & master of modern horror Jonathan Janz.

Watch on YouTube

Images:

Flame Tree Studio

Shutterstock

In Darkness, Shadows Breathe

Just out from Flame Tree Press!

"A compelling, immersive, and intense time-slip horror novel with sympathetic characters that readers actively root for. The tale reads like The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle if it were written by Sarah Pinborough." -- Library Journal 

"Cavendish breathes new life into familiar horror tropes in this spine-tingling tale of past and present colliding" - Publishers' Weekly

“One of the most chilling stories of possession I have ever read.” – ihorror.com

"In Darkness, Shadows Breathe is an eerie, dark, gothic story…a page turner...that seriously gave me chills and nightmares.” – It’s All About The Books

“If you are looking for an extremely atmospheric read, then look no further.  In Darkness Shadows Breathe is one you definitely need to grab!” – Booker T’s Farm

"If you enjoy gothic horror with a supernatural element and strong female characters, this is a must read for you!" - Erica Robyn Reads

"In Darkness, Shadows Breathe is a good way to start 2021, because it’s a novel centering around recovery, something the world can relate to right now. Cavendish shines in the ways she’s connected to the story, making herself vulnerable to not only her readers, but to the ghosts that haunt her." -- Aiden Merchant

 “In Darkness, Shadows Breathe” is a treat for those who are in the mood for scary, supernatural horror." Rajiv’s Reviews

“Catherine Cavendish wears the crown as the reigning queen of gothic horror” – Reading Odyssey Stephen King and Beyond

“A fast-paced, supernatural horror story which I thoroughly enjoyed” – BookmarkThat.co.uk

“An atmospheric read, packed with tension and chilling moments.” – On the Shelf Reviews

“A story that creeps up and drags you in until you are almost as scared as the characters you are reading about. Magnificently dark, eerie and all-consuming” – Beyond the Books

“The setting is absolutely perfect…mixing Gothic chills with modern terrors in a way that works devilishly well.” – Brown Flopsy’s Book Burrow

“A great thriller…really had me guessing’ - donnasbookblog

“In Darkness, Shadows Breathe is an intriguing and at times delightfully creepy ghost story that I enjoyed very much.” – From Belgium with Book Love

“A fine tale of horror with two intriguing leads and a disturbing world both have to face.” – Runalong the Shelves

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 n boundaries and crosses dimensions - bending and twisting time itself - and where danger waits in ever shadow. The battle us 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...

In Darkness, Shadows Breathe is available from:

Amazon

Flame Tree Press

Simon & Schuster

Barnes and Noble

at bookstores, and other online outlets

Join me on tour!

T shirt design by Ilan Sheady

Flame Tree - Live and Spooky for Halloween

We stirred up our cauldrons, dusted off your broomsticks and lit up our Jack O'Lanterns for the first ever Flame Tree Publishing Halloween Creepy Carnival of horrific delights.

So, what happened?

Click on the links to find out:

 

 

 

 

 

Dark Dundee

Many of us have heard of Edinburgh's spooky dark, subterranean Closes and sinister history, but Scotland has a lot more just waiting to be discovered. So, if your taste runs to the supernatural, paranormal, or just plain macabre, you need to stop off in Dundee - and let the knowledgeable folk at Dark Dundee be your guides. They're my guests today...

Thank you for letting me talk a little bit about my website on your blog – it’s an honour and a privilege to be able to share with you. Dark Dundee is run by myself (Stewart Heaton), and Helen-Louise Murphy. Together, we scour the annals of our city’s dark history, uncovering its devilishly morbid past. Dark Dundee is the only web-based resource of its kind that faces Dundee’s blood-soaked history head on. When it comes to dark and supernatural history, Dundee is often overlooked, but we have our fair share of death, mayhem and carnage in our timeline too!

Once known as the place of “jute, jam and journalism”, Dundee is now a thriving medical, digital and cultural community. Helen-Louise and myself run a web and graphic design business called Blue Lagoon Designs, but we also have a passion for local history (more importantly, the darker side of history). With such a wealth of stories, myths and legends right here on our own doorstep, we took the brave step to combine our two passions and launched our website www.darkdundee.co.uk.
We had no idea how quickly it would take off, and, within months, we were inundated with stories, requests, images and offers of help from all over the city. Our social media pages quickly began to swell as more and more people visited our website and shared our content. It was a really exciting start for us as we did not expect people to be so receptive as quickly as they were.

On our site, you can read about the days when our streets ran red with blood at the hands of Oliver Cromwell’s army, led by the ruthless General Monck and his marauding men. In 1651, they breached the town’s defending walls and overwhelmed the citizens with brutal and barbaric force. For three days, Monck’s men terrorised the town, killing without mercy before finally leaving with the lion’s share of Scotland’s wealth, which lay within the fortified walls of Dundee. Read more about this story on our website.


You may have heard of the Tay Rail Disaster – the largest rail tragedy of its kind at the time in the world and still hailed today as one of the worst engineering disasters in history. On a particularly stormy night in December of 1879, the massive structure gave way to the elements and plummeted into the murky depths of the raging river Tay, taking with it the lives of every passenger on board. A lengthy search ensued, but some of the bodies were never recovered. The full details of the horrific disaster are here on our site, and it is a tragedy that is still felt in the hearts of the people of Dundee today.

Cold-blooded murders happen all over the world, and Dundee is no exception. From historic murders to some that are more recent, Dark Dundee explores the horrifying and public murder cases that have beset our city. Jack the Ripper suspect, William Bury murdered his wife Ellen in the city of Dundee in 1889. Was the Wife O’ Denside a stone-cold killer, or just an innocent victim? We’ll let you be the judge of that. From infanticide to poisoning, Dundee has plenty of dark offerings, and where better to tell them than on our website.

Not only do we look at murders, we also explore the supernatural side of Dundee. From witchcraft and sorcery to ghosts, myths and monsters, Dark Dundee has it all. Read all about Charmaine’s Bigfoot sighting near Carmylie, by Dundee, or indulge in the legend of the Nine Maidens, where Martin is alleged to have slain a ravenous serpent as revenge for eating the farm maids. The legend of the white lady of Balgay still leaves people fearful to cross the infamous bridge at night, even now, in 2015, for fear of her wrath. Grissell Jaffray, Dundee’s legendary witch, was burned on a pyre in the town in 1669, and was the last person to be burned in Dundee for the crime of witchcraft. With the records destroyed by fire, Grissell’s charges are now lost to time. Hop aboard the famous RRS Discovery and step back in time to visit the ghosts of its past and take a virtual tour of the deck whilst you’re there.

Dark Dundee offers history like you’ve never heard it before – a city that has risen from the ashes more than once, and continues to thrive, grow and reinvent itself as a centre for culture, trade and discovery. The Dark Dundee website blends fact with fiction by way of our free e-books and our online decision-making game whereby you control the outcome of events as situations unfold before you. We have lots more planned in the future for Dark Dundee, including walking tours which will hopefully start in the Autumn, and a potential 2016 calendar, filled with facts, dates and figures about our city and its rich, vibrant, and often bloody history. 

Because of our backgrounds in design and public engagement, we have been able to create all of the visual content you see on our website ourselves, from our website graphics to our videos, book covers and promotional materials. We keep in touch with our fans via our website as well as our social media, so please keep in touch with us on Facebook and on Twitter, and be sure to check out our videos on YouTube. If you are ever in the city, give us a shout and we’ll take you on a journey that’s sure to send a shiver down your spine. Perhaps you should do a bit of research into your own village, town or city…there’s bound to be a skeleton or two just waiting to be unearthed! 

For now, I’ll leave you with the link to the promotional video for the website. Thanks so much for reading!