Sally is an author of supernatural stories and gothic fiction and her first novel, Haverscroft, was published by Salt Publishing in May 2019. Haverscroft is a contemporary haunted house story and domestic noir. Sally writes as S.A.Harris and is currently completing her second novel, a supernatural tale set on the Suffolk coast. Sally is on Twitter as @salharris1 and her website is saharrisauthor.com.
“In Chapel Croft, You don’t have to play with fire to get burned…” and so goes the blurb on this thriller laced with supernatural elements, mystery, and horror. The story gets off to a cracking start with a short prologue which the reader later learns to be a flashback.
Christmas Eve is “the perfect time to hunker down and enjoy the special kind of festive cosiness that you could only get from scaring yourself silly with spooky tales,” says editor, Tanya Kirk, in her short introduction to this excellent collection of weird festive short stories.
Into The London Fog: Eerie Tales From The Weird City invites the reader to join editor, Elizabeth Dearnley, on an “atmospheric tour through a shadowy London, a city which has long inspired writers of the weird and uncanny.” What a tour it is for those who enjoy strange stories of hauntings, seances and dark secrets which, as in any good gothic tale, return to terrify the living.
Boy In The Box opens with the main protagonist, Jonathan Hollis, waiting in line to kneel before the coffin of his former friend, Gene Hendrickson. Two other mourners, the Braddock brothers, share a dark secret with Jonathan, one which led Gene to take his own life. The four men, friends since childhood, lost touch with each other following a hunting trip a decade earlier. A trip intended to be a stag party turned into something altogether darker, ending in tragedy and leaving each of them haunted in their own separate ways by memories and overwhelming guilt. Now the three survivors must return to the Gulch or their deed a decade ago will be discovered, destroying each of their lives and families futures forever.
The seedy underbelly of a small Missouri town is exposed when two young girls are brutally murdered one snowy night in this gripping psychological thriller. The opening chapter in The Familiar Dark is titled “The End.” and is a short, shocking page and a half that draws the reader straight into the narrative.
“They died during a freak April snowstorm, blood pooling on a patchy bed of white.”
The House on the Lake opens with an anonymous narrator reflecting on the loss of all she ever wanted. “Love. Family. Home.” The reader has no idea how she has fallen into this dire situation but something terrible has happened. There is blood in the snow and the police are breaking down the door.