I’m sure you know by now that I love bookish events and meeting readers, but like most authors I also crave writing without thinking about logistics! I’m looking forward to a summer break.
August 1st will see my final event for a while: the Leamington Spa Book Extravaganza the the Royal Pump Rooms. It’s the same weekend as Leamington’s Art In The Park Festival, so there’s no excuse not to make some indie book shopping part of a big day out.
September sees a quadruple-header of events, beginning with Birmingham Book Extravaganza on the 12th. My new home town of Bedford sees two events a week later: the first Write By The Riverfestival on September 18th, with the Innsmouth Literary Festival of weird and cosmic fiction on September 19th. Finally, the MK Lit Fest indie book fair takes place on September 26th.
You’ll find full details of everything at the Writer On The Road page on my website.
What I’ve read this month
The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder
by Stephen Cox
It’s both a compliment to the story and a challenge to review this Victorian mystery without giving away the double-twist that changes everything in a delightfully unexpected direction at the end of the first act.
Stephen Cox sets up a grimy and believable Victoriana, where fake medium Mrs Ashton and her working-class lover, Mrs Bradshaw, work the spiritualist scene staying one step ahead of their creditors and a policeman who suspects them of stealing from wealthy clients. Yet Mrs Ashton is no ordinary cold-reader for she can read the minds of the living and though it comes at a terrible physical and mental cost, this talent makes her claimed dealings with the dead so credible.
When Lady Violet comes to Mrs Ashton with suspicions about her mother’s untimely death, Mrs Ashton’s gift reveals that Lady Violet’s husband, the powerful MP Sir Charles Barrington-Stewart, has a dark and violent past. Unable to resist the lure of Lady Violet’s riches, Mrs Ashton’s attempts to unravel the mystery bring murder and suspicion to her doorstep.
Mrs Ashton and Mrs Bradshaw’s relationship is no meet-cute romantasy, but a mature romance hiding in plain sight under the prurient gaze of Victorian society. The twisting story is anchored by the tension between adventurous, opportunistic Mrs Ashton and Mrs Bradshaw, faithful, protective and determined to find them a peaceful respite far from London society. Yet there’s still time to draw detailed pictures of Maisie, Mrs Ashton’s street-urchin assistant, the ambitious and arrogant Sir Charles, Chief Inspector Bullfinch, the policeman who’s been pursuing Mrs Ashton for years, and a large cast of allies, enemies, ghosts and potential killers who populate a world that could live beyond the page.
This richness flows naturally and never derails the story as it flits between middle-class London, the upper-class Barrington-Stewart country estate and the dangerous London docklands. The only drawback to such a full cast is that the denouement takes time to resolve each strand and deliver the central characters to a place that doesn’t demand a sequel. There is one, though: The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Terror.
Topping up my TBR pile
The Lottery and Other Stories
by Shirley Jackson
I loved Jackson’s classic work of American gothic, We Have Always Lived In The Castle, so I can’t wait to dig into this collection of short fiction from one of the great American horror authors.
The Only Good Indians
by Stephen Graham Jones
I’m currently reading Adam Nevill’s terrifying The Ritual and in the right mood for another wilderness-based chiller, but this tale of rural folk horror breaking into the security of modern civilisation also gives me strong Yellowjackets vibes.
Indie books for July 2026
Buy a book and support independent self-published authors. Indie author links may expire.
Requiem of a Lost Nation
by Angel Ramon
Psychological horror based on the true events of the Salvadoran Civil War. A gut-wrenching coming-of-age wartime horror tale of a young girl who watches her life turn for the worse in her hometown of El Salvador.
Otilia is a woman who returns to El Salvador decades after escaping the civil war back in the 1980s. At the age of 51, she decides to write a requiem about her life and times before and during the Civil War. However, it proves to be a painful experience as she opens up old wounds from some of her worst days in life as the civil war intensifies.
As she writes about her past, she ends up bumping into painful memories even in the present time, such as a war memorial and a hotel that used to be an orphanage. Her tale ends up being far more painful than even she remembers as she deals with generational trauma and its lingering effects. It becomes even more painful as she walks through her old hometown, remembering the lost souls of her long-gone friends.
Can Otilia find the strength to finish her requiem and bury her demons once and for all? Or will her past demons be too much for her to handle, causing her to be nothing more than a statistic?
A powerful story that tackles wartime horror, psychological horror, and the long-term consequences of political indoctrination on an entire generation of innocent people.
The story is a fictional account of the real-life Salvadoran Civil War told from the point of view of the author’s mother.
Lost Cause (FREE EBOOK)
by Jill Hedgecock
A Lost Doberman. An Orphaned Teen Girl. Can These Two Save Each Other?
An orphan teen girl makes an impulsive decision to rescue a dog to help overcome her grief from her father’s death. Is the dog’s puzzling barking behaviour in her house a quirk, or is there something otherworldly lurking in her dining room?
In this prequel, the moment orphaned sixteen-year-old Sarah Whitman rescues a Doberman is revealed. The never-before-seen story jump starts the ghostly premise of the first novel in the Shadow the Doberman suspense series, Between Shadow’s Eyes.
Dark Fiction Summer Sale
Get your holiday horror, thriller and mystery fix on Kindle Unlimited in the Dark Fiction Summer Sale. From the beach to the bar to way past your bedtime, you’ll be turning pages late into the night.