Dark Avenging Angel - My Writing Catharsis

 

I am delighted to announce that Dark Avenging Angel is now out in paperback! 

Thanks to the lovely people at Crossroad Press, I can, for the first time, hold this short novel in my hand and flip the actual pages. Result!

Dark Avenging Angel has had a bit of a history actually. In terms of publication,  it started off at Samhain Press, and then migrated to Crossroad Press a few years ago, but always as an e-book so, when David Dodd suggested a print version I leaped at it. Almost literally as it happened as, while I was reading the email, my chair decided to perform one of its periodic rapid-descents-with-no-warning. Half in and had out of it I let out a whoop of equal parts delight and shock. I'll let you work out which reaction related to which event.

The story behind Dark Avenging Angel is complicated. In common with (I guess) most people of my age, I have had my fair share of ups and downs and emotional rollercoasters. But growing up in the Sixties and early Seventies, going into therapy of any kind was pretty much unheard of unless you were incredibly rich with lots of time on your hands. Any trauma that came along was supposed to make you stronger. You were supposed to simply 'get on with it' and 'pull yourself together'. And maybe the 'stiff upper lip' British tradition played a part as well. It simply wasn't British to complain about your lot and, of course, there was a stigma about anything relating to mental health. This was still the era of the 'loony bin' as mental health institutions of any kind were commonly referred to colloquially.

The term 'psychological abuse' was one I had never even heard of until I watched an episode of 'Oprah' back in 1988 and suddenly realized for the first time (yes, honestly) that what I had suffered all through my childhood actually had a name.

Dear reader, I was 34 years old when I watched that programme.

The baggage was heavy. What happens to you in childhood never goes away. Sometimes the damage is so deep it affects everything you do and, in my case, a crippling lack of self-confidence always held me back.

Now I had a name for what I had been through - at the hands of my father - I sought ways of resolving it. I realized I had never come to terms with it but even then (remember this was 1988), it still wasn't within my financial means to seek professional help which I would have had to finance entirely myself and which I would have had to find some way of squaring with an employer who would have seen it as a sign I maybe wasn't up to the job. Mental health issues were still not on the agenda even if Oprah was talking about them.

I had to find my own way. And that's when Dark Avenging Angel was born. Back then, it was nothing like the story you read today. That early version is long consigned to the garbage but the sheer act of drafting a story, giving my problems over to a character I created, and letting her deal with them in a way I would dearly have loved to, caused a major transformation in me. I found I was able to put things into context far more. I couldn't erase the past but I could at least go some way to consigning it to the past and move on with my life. I also found I was able to stop blaming myself and put the responsibility firmly in the hands of the adult who had abused the child. I wasn't the worthless, useless, stupid kid he told me I was.

Years later, I returned to this story. More emotional baggage had added itself to my unholy collection by that time so I simply expanded the story. Jane and her dark avenging angel had a lot more work to do. The story I ended up with would never have seen the light of day without significant changes, of course. Dark Avenging Angel is a work of fiction. Only the emotions are real.

Not all of us feel comfortable talking to others about our emotions and our psychological problems. For some of us, me included, I feel that the underlying problems that dogged me for much of my life emanate from so far in the past that I have found my own alternatives and they work for me. 

If you feel you can relate to this, why not create your own dark avenging angel? Give all that baggage over to a character you create. Let them deal with it - along with a little demonic help of course. Or maybe your entity will be more godlike? Alien? Another animal species? I call it 'writing it out'. It's not a cure, but it is a coping mechanism and one that, for me, started with Dark Avenging Angel 

Of course, life moves on and with it come more emotional upheavals and difficult mental challenges. When the next biggie came along - cancer - I knew what to do. And In Darkness, Shadows Breathe saw Nessa taking on the challenge. But that, as they say, is another story...

Don't hurt Jane - you may live to regret it

Bullied by her abusive father, Jane always felt different. Then the lonely child found a friend in a mysterious dark lady who offers her protection—a lady she calls her “angel”. But that protection carries a terrible price, one to be paid with the souls of those Jane chooses to suffer a hideous and eternal fate.

When Jane refuses to name another victim, the angel reveals her most terrifying side. Payment must be made in full—one way or the other.

 "Dark Avenging Angel is a fantastic read. This novel will consume you and your free time. It is a standout story that reminds me why I love horror literature." – Horror Underground

“Cavendish breaks the mould and unleashes a hellacious, creepy tale with spirits, the tormented and an overall thread of redemption.”- Horrornews.net

 "I discovered Cat Cavendish's books not too long ago and she very quickly became one of my to-be-hoarded authors.  Angel is a perfect example of her writing." - Cat After Dark

 
"Dark Avenging Angel wasn't quite the novel I expected - it's something deeper, more well-rounded, and more emotionally relevant because of it." - Beauty in Ruins

"A riveting story, Dark Avenging Angel plants unforgettable roots in the reader's mind." The Haunted Reading Room

You can find Dark Avenging Angel here: 

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

And now in paperback!

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

The After-Death of Caroline Rand - Out Now!

  

At a weekend house party at ancient Canonbury Manor, Alli is caught between fantasy and reality, past and present, in the life of Caroline Rand, a famous singer from the late Sixties, who reportedly killed herself in that house. Alli soon learns that evil infests the once-holy building. A sinister cabal controls it, as it has for centuries. Before long, her fate will be sealed, and she will learn about her role in the after-death of Caroline Rand.

It begins with a chilling greeting: "Welcome to The Columbine, Miss Sinclair. You are expected."

What Reviewers Have Said:

‘A chilling tale filled with secrets and time jumps that slowly reveal the darkness that’s lurking deep within Canonbury Manor.’ – Erica Robyn Reads

‘The After-Death of Caroline Rand is surprising, ingenious and very atmospheric. A great supernatural tale to listen to with a 60s sidetrack alongside it watch out for the darker shadows. Highly recommended!’ - Runalongwomble

‘The currently reigning queen of gothic horror’ – Daniel Robichaud, Considering Stories

‘If you are looking for a novel that will challenge your perceptions and force you to question reality while taking you on a rollercoaster of a ride through time, The After-Death of Caroline Rand is the novel for you.’ – A Reviewer Darkly

'The best Catherine Cavendish yet.' - Russell James, author of Demon Dagger

‘I was completely chilled and hooked from the very first page’ – Daisy Blacklock @_the_book_reviewer_1

'Dream sequences, time travel, spooky monks, and an attic area to give you nightmares-  - Silkybookloverfun

'If spooky is your type of genre, you need to pick yourself up this book.' - Twoladiesandabook

‘I do love the way Catherine tells her stories, and it’s no different here. She had me enraptured, all the while trying to figure out what the heck would happen!- Zooloo’s Book Diary

‘Great for fans of slow burn horror and multiple timelines/points of view.’ – Stephhorrormama

‘Throughout the book, we have lots of twists to keep us guessing, with dark details to keep the tension high.’ – Naturalbri_books

‘The book is very strong and definitely is a strong contender for book of the year. It also has made me want more by this author as she has such a great ability to make her concepts come to life.’ – Crazy Canadian Writing

‘Reminded me of Rosemary’s Baby, The Haunting of Hill House, Come Closer (by Sara Gran), gothic horror fans would enjoy! - The Vampire’s Library

The After-Death of Caroline Rand is available here:

Amazon

Flame Tree Press

Barnes and Noble

Bookshop.org

Simon and Schuster

Waterstones

and all good bookshops - in the high street or online

And - while you're reading (or contemplating reading) why not listen to this playlist to put you in the mood:

Spotify - The After-Death of Caroline Rand

The Wickedest Man's Wicked House

Do you believe that buildings have the power to retain the imprints of past events that took place within their walls? It’s a theme I have explored on a number of occasions – including in my latest novel, The After-Death of Caroline Rand. Canonbury Manor is a prime candidate for one such house. and, while that is fictional, the one I am talking about here is entirely real and was once owned by the infamous Great Beast himself – Aleister Crowley.

Boleskine House, with its secluded setting in Scottish countryside near picturesque Loch Ness was the perfect place for the man dubbed England’s wickedest man, to set up residence and practice his darkest of dark arts.

Crowley bought the house at the age of twenty-three, in 1899 and during his residency was said to have summoned some 115 spirits, including the devil himself. He also conducted an elaborate six month ‘power-giving’ ceremony there called Abra Melin. It is said that the grandmaster of the Order of the Golden Dawn – effectively his ‘boss’-  interrupted him during the time of this ritual with an urgent summons to go to Paris. As a result Crowley left, having not shut the ritual down properly. So, the spirits he summoned to Boleskine stayed there. These are hardly insignificant ones either – Abra Melin demands the summoning of the Twelve Kings and Dukes of Hell.

Not that they were alone. Boleskine had a bizarre reputation for sinister bewitchment dating from long before Crowley’s time.

Boleskine Kirk, which used to stand on the shore of Loch Ness, appears to have been one possible source of the cursed land round and about. Evidently an early minister of that parish was forced to fend off a wizard who was raising the dead and getting up to all sorts of mischief. The minister – Thomas Houston (1648-1705) - had to lay the disturbed ghosts to rest again. But sometime later, fire destroyed the entire church, and all who were in it, during a sermon.

Fire seems to play a recurring part on Boleskine’s history – even up to recent times.

In 1762, a visiting bishop noted the dilapidated state of the church and graveyard, remarking on the lack of walls of the churchyard and the plethora of human bones scattered everywhere, including on the floor of the kirk itself. Dogs were witnessed running off with them.

Soon after this, a committed Jacobite – Colonel Archibald Fraser – bought the land and built Boleskine House on the charred remains of the kirk. He also managed to acquire land thereabouts which had belonged to Simon Fraser, 11^th Lord Lovat, who switched sides from Jacobite to Stuart and lost everything including his life (he was beheaded).

Colonel Fraser’s family retained possession of the house right up until the time they sold it to Crowley. The house now entered its darkest time. Crowley had few, if any, redeeming qualities and took great delight in the suffering he caused the local people by his sinister practices, which drew in the unwary as well as those with equally sadistic and perverted preferences. He boasted of how an employee on the Boleskine estate who had been sober for 20 years was enticed into getting drunk one night and ended up attempting to kill his wife and children. Then Crowley’s lodge keeper, Hugh Gillies suffered a series of tragedies. His ten-year-old daughter died suddenly at school and the following year, his fifteen month old son suffered convulsions and died on his mother’s knee.

Crowley may have sold the house in 1913, but the tragedies didn’t stop there. In 1960, the then owner Major Edward Grant shot himself in Crowley’s former bedroom – an event that the 78 year-old housekeeper, Anna MacLaren said had been revealed to her in a premonition exactly seven days earlier when she had been picking vegetables alone in the garden and heard a shot from inside the house. On investigation, she found no one there at that time but when the real shot happened, she was the one who found the Major, lying on the floor with most of his head shot off. The family dog was laying with a bone from the deceased man’s skull.

After that a young couple moved in. The wife was blind. Within a few months, her husband abandoned her there, alone in the house.

In 1969, film maker Kenneth Anger lived there during the summer. He saw a heavy painting seemingly detach itself off the wall, and float down gently to the floor.

A new buyer acquired the house in 1970. Jimmy Page, legendary guitarist with rock group Led Zeppelin, was fascinated by Aleister Crowley so much so he had to acquire his house. Yet for all his enthusiasm for it, he probably spent no more than around six weeks there during his twenty-year ownership. Instead, Page’s longtime friend Malcolm Dent moved in with the aim of restoring it. Dent loved living there and raised his family. A confirmed sceptic when he moved in, by the time he left he acknowledged that there were some things about the house that he couldn’t explain.

One such instance involved a female guest who woke up screaming that she had been attacked by some sort of devil. Another time, Dent himself was woken by what sounded like a wild animal snorting and clawing at his bedroom door. He was too scared to open the door until morning whereupon he found nothing there but remained convinced of what he had heard.

Doors opened and slammed shut in the middle of the night. Rugs would be found in a pile. All of this he put down to Aleister Crowley – by now long dead.

Seven chairs acquired by Jimmy Page from the Café Royal had each belonged to a famous person and had the associated nameplate attached to them. These comprised: Aleister Crowley, Marie Lloyd, Billy Butlin, James Agate, Rudolph Valentino, William Orpen and Jacob Epstein. Crowley’s chair was always placed at the head of the table but, when the chairs returned after restoration, Crowley’s chair was forever being switched with Marie Lloyd’s, even though no one could possibly have done this. Dent only found an explanation of sorts when he discovered that the restorer had erroneously switched the nameplates of the two famous people.

The next owners, Ronald and Annette MacGillivray would have nothing to do with Crowley’s legacy and frequently painted over his occult symbols. Sadly, as soon as the paint dried, the symbols allegedly kept reappearing. In 2000, a BBC film crew working on a documentary entitled, The Other Loch Ness Monster were attacked by a plague of beetles, suffered a variety of unexplained equipment failures, and some photos taken just down the hill (above a purported tunnel leading to the house) were ruined by a ‘strange halo of fog’ which could not be explained as lens flare or a camera fault. The producer said he had never seen anything like it. Exploding lights and falling camera stands showered the crew in broken glass, a crew member’s phone rang intermittently for no reason and another colleague’s alarm went off at the same time each day – even though it wasn’t set. All of this took place despite the best efforts of a priest and clerics who blessed the project.

In 2002, new owners bought the house. Fortunately, they weren’t there in 2015 when a devastating fire gutted the house. It started in the kitchen although there was no one there. and the actual cause was never determined.

Following that fire, the owners put the property up for sale and it was bought by the not-for-profit Boleskine House Foundation which set about restoring it. But it seems, the curse of fire wasn’t done yet. In December 2019, only a week after the purchase, another fire raged through the building. This time, though, the cause was believed to be arson.

Not to be deterred, the Foundation aims to restore the building to its former glory and open it to the public. Let’s hope Aleister Crowley lets them get on with it although their aims to promote ‘heritage, education, health and wellness’ seem somewhat at odds with his philosophy.

I wish them well.

Meanwhile, at Canonbury Manor…

 The After-Death of Caroline Rand

At a weekend house-party at ancient Canonbury Manor, Alli is caught between fantasy and reality, past and present, in the life of Caroline Rand, a famous singer from the late Sixties, who reportedly killed herself in that house. Alli soon learns that evil infests the once-holy building. A sinister cabal controls it, as it has for centuries. Before long, her fate will be sealed, and she will learn about her role in the after-death of Caroline Rand.

It begins with a chilling greeting: "Welcome to The Columbine, Miss Sinclair. You are expected."

The After-Death of Caroline Rand

Available from:

amazon

Bookshop.org

Simon and Schuster

Barnes and Noble

Waterstones

Kobo

and

 wherever you normally shop for books – online or in the high street

Images:

Shutterstock

Nik Keevil and Flame Tree Studio

Author’s own

 

 

 

 

Diabolus ex Machina

In Damned by the Ancients (part of the Nemesis of the Gods trilogy), a child’s doll becomes possessed and, indeed, there are many well-documented cases of toys and furniture seeming to have been appropriated by dark forces.

These days, though, the devil has added technology to his arsenal. You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘Deus ex machina’ (‘God from the machine). Well here is the evil counterpart – ‘Diabolus ex machina’ (‘Devil from the machine’).

Take this strange case in Poland.

In 2014, priest Marian Rajchel carried out an exorcism on a teenage girl. It failed. Instead of leaving her soul, he somehow managed to drive the demon into the girl’s mobile phone whereupon he started to receive threatening text messages from it. He replied and received the response, “Shut up, Preacher. You cannot save yourself. Idiot. You pathetic old preacher.” Even more sinister, one message said, “She will not come out of hell. She’s mine. Anyone who prays for her will die.”

Father Rajchel is convinced the author of the text messages is the same demon that possesses the girl’s soul and, furthermore, asserts that this is no isolated incident. He believes many such cases like this are going undetected because people don’t realise they are being used in this way.

He has gone on record saying that the young girl is in need of further help to rid her of the evil inhabiting her.

But Father Rajchel is not alone in his belief that the devil is working through technology. In Savannah, Georgia, Reverend Jim Peasboro wrote a book entitled, The Devil in the Machine; Is Your Computer Possessed by a Demon? In his view, any computer built after 1985 has the memory capacity to house a demon. According to him, ‘one in ten computers in America now houses some type of evil spirit.” He quotes as evidence for this, many instances of formerly happily married men unable to stop themselves from visiting pornographic websites and of women drawn into internet chat rooms where they behaved totally out of character, using foul language and debasing themselves in a way that would hitherto have been abhorrent to them. One such woman wept as she told of feeling that whenever she was using her computer, someone else was controlling her actions.

When challenged that this is simply the result of the easy availability of so much unsavoury – and worse – material on the internet, Reverend Peasboro insisted that he knew for certain demons were at work – because he had come face to face with them.

He told a story of inspecting a computer believed to be possessed by an evil spirit when it began openly ‘talking’ to him. It typed out, “Preacher, you are a weakling and your God is a damn liar.” It then started to go berserk and printed out what looked like nonsense. He consulted an expert in dead languages who studied it and reported back that the text contained a stream of obscenities written in a 2800 year old Mesopotamian dialect.

So, what do you do if you suspect your usually friendly PC or tablet starts behaving in a disturbing fashion? According to Reverend Peasboro you should contact a member of the clergy for help and, if that doesn’t work, call a computer technician who will change the hard drive and reinstall all the software. This, he assures us, will get rid of the spirit permanently.

Or maybe, your IT technician will simply ask the age-old question, “Have you tried turning it off and then turning it back on again?”

 

An obsession beyond reason. A passion that transcends the grave…

“The tension ratchets up until the end of the book, and it ends in true horror fashion.” M.K. French- Girl Who Reads

“I always feel when reading her books that I am right there with the characters and experiencing everything that they are going through” Book Nook Retreat

  Available from:

Weird House Press

Amazon

 

 Images:

Cyrus Wraith Walker and Weird House Press

Shutterstock