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Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > Horror & ghost stories
DESCENT INTO HELL In a town preparing to put on a play by the
celebrated Mr Stanhope, several people wrestle with inner and
possibly outer demons. A poor loser of a man hangs himself, but his
ghost still wanders the streets. A young girl fears what will
happen when she meets her doppelganger, the one who comes closer
and closer each time she sees her. A man jilted in love meets a
succubus. And a grandmother hovers between life and death.
Generally thought to be Williams's best novel, Descent into Hell
deals with various forms of selfishness, and how the cycle of sin
brings about the necessity for redemptive acts.
The third and Final chapter in the Fenton Saga as Daniel, Madison
and Todd are faced once more with their evil father. Who will
perish as they try to rid the world of Bill Fenton.
This book proposes a comparative approach to the supernatural short
stories of Machado de Assis, Henry James and Guy de Maupassant. It
offers an alternative to predominantly novel-centric and
Anglo-centric perspectives on literary pre-modernism by
investigating a transnational and multilingual connection between
genre, theme and theory, i.e., between the modern short story, the
supernatural and the problem of knowledge. Incorporating a close
analysis of the literary texts into a discussion of their
historical context, the book argues that Machado, James and
Maupassant explore and reinvent the supernatural short story as a
metafictional genre. This modernized and innovative form allows
them to challenge the dichotomies and conventions of realist and
supernatural fiction, inviting their past and present readers to
question common assumptions on reality and literary representation.
'Deliciously chilly' - Guardian 'Humming with suppressed hysteria
and madness' - The Times 'Wonderfully evocative' - Heat Hare House
is not its real name, of course. I have, if you will forgive me,
kept names to a minimum here, for reasons that will become
understandable . . . In the first brisk days of autumn, a woman
arrives in Scotland having left her job at an all-girls school in
London in mysterious circumstances. Moving into a cottage on the
remote estate of Hare House, she begins to explore her new home.
But among the tiny roads, wild moorland, and scattered houses,
something more sinister lurks: local tales of witchcraft, clay
figures and young men sent mad. Striking up a friendship with her
landlord and his younger sister, she begins to suspect that all
might not be quite as it seems at Hare House. And as autumn turns
to winter, and a heavy snowfall traps the inhabitants of the estate
within its walls, tensions rise to fever pitch. Sally Hinchcliffe's
Hare House is a modern-day witch story, perfect for fans of Pine
and The Loney. 'A beautiful, slow burn of a novel, eerie and
shimmering in equal measure' - Mary Paulson-Ellis
All Hallows' Eve is the story of a man and woman whose love was so
great it could bridge the gap of death; of evil so terrible as to
be unmentionable, of a vision so beautiful it must be true. Opens
with a discussion between the ghosts of two dead women wandering
about London. Ultimately explores the meaning of human suffering
and empathy by dissolving the barrier between the living and the
dead through both black magic and divine love. A young woman dies
to discover a London that looks right out of Dante. A painter does
a portrait of a minister and discovers he has painted beetles, and
the minister thanks him for it! A magician sends someone to the
future. All Hallow's Eve is an amazing book in that it explores
both the question of 'what happens when you die?' as well as 'what
is the relationship between the dead and the living?'. Charles
Williams at his best.
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