MY E-BOOKS

Coming soon!

The collection of 25 short stories, “Bleak Midwinter Tales”, is now available.

Cover for Bleak Midwinter Tales

From Smashwords (for Sony, PDF and others): click here to buy

From Amazon.co.uk (for Kindle): click here to buy

From Amazon.com (for Kindle): click here to buy

The collection is of 25 short stories and flash fiction, ranging from just under 200 words to almost 2,000 words. The description is:

Welcome to a collection of dark and moody short fiction – twenty-five stories to entertain you in winter. There’s no comedy. There’s no romance. There’s spooky goings-on, there’s some nasty goings-on, and there’s some very peculiar characters. And, I’m afraid, there’s some death. Quite a lot of death, actually. I hope you enjoy them.

Here’s a sample from the book:

ONE MORE STEP

That’s all it needed – one more step. Overhead, white, wispy clouds decorated a clear, blue sky. The sun had risen just over an hour ago, and sat low on the horizon, watching, waiting.

On his drive down here, Thomas had blinked away tears of frustration, and of rage. They had turned single-point streetlights into starbursts. They turned the warmth of his unshaven face cold and wet where they touched.

He stood on the edge for a moment, hands in pockets, hunched up against the early morning chill. In his trouser pocket, his hand creased the car park ticket, and the insanity of paying to park his car hit home, as a culmination of everything that was wrong about his life. About him.

“It’s all your fault,” she had said. “How long did you expect me to wait for you? I have my needs. I have to feel loved.”

He had loved her, even from a hundred miles away.

But everything had been his fault. Even that first time, when he had come home with the early signs of flu, and caught the two of them? Yes, even then.

He had wanted to punish Charles. Punish him for being a good friend to her when she needed it. Punish him for sleeping with her when he was working hard to pay the arrears on the mortgage, or to pay her credit card bills. He had needed to punish Charles, to feel like he had some control over his life. And he had punished him, well.

And now, after the fifteen years (time off for good behaviour), she had remarried, had children, and had forgotten about him.

He looked at the sun. It smiled at him, and he took that last step.

The second collection of 25 short stories, “Bleak Midwinter Tales 2”, is now available.

From Smashwords (for Sony, PDF and others): click here to buy

From Amazon.co.uk (for Kindle): click here to buy

From Amazon.com (for Kindle): click here to buy

The second in a series of dark, disturbing, sometimes humerous, often sad, tales. Twenty-five stories from around 200 to nearly 2000 words, each a complete story.

Here’s a sample from the book:

DAMNED

I am sitting on a low, dilapidated brick wall, before an inconspicuous, two-up, two-down terraced house. I am deep in thought, but I know what’s going to happen.

I go inside the house, and try once more for a reconciliation, which fails. As it always has done before. Despite my pleading, and putting on my best tortured soul expression, Daniella doesn’t want to know. She jabs an accusing finger at me, individually listing the occasions I had promised fidelity, starting with our marriage eight years ago. She then lists the occasions, equal in number, I had failed to keep those promises.

So I skulk out, head down, oblivious to the world around me. I walk into the street, straight in front of the large juggernaut being driven by a man talking on his mobile phone. There’s no time for the horn to sound, and the squeal of breaks and screech of tyres makes we wince. It’s not a pretty sight, parts of me splattered across the front of his cab and smeared across the road.

I watch as the images fade to black. My eyes adjust to the new picture, and I understand what damned for all eternity means.

I am sitting on a low, dilapidated brick wall, before an inconspicuous, two-up, two-down terraced house.