Publisher's Synopsis
"There is a tangible tension and a feeling of discomfort in his writing that is at once refreshing and unnerving." Helen Scott, peer review
A woman haunted by a childhood nursery rhyme. A literary scholar obsessed with tracking down the origins of a primeval scream. A boy with behavioural problems who is sent to an old country estate in the hopes he can be reformed. These are just some of the characters encountered in Alistair Rey's unique brand of weird fiction. This collection features stories where places have their own secrets, where terror comes alive, where the simplest of us find nothing is so simple anymore. We can no longer trust music and art; we become bound to them to learn their horrors. We cannot trust the mundane or commonplace; we become absorbed beneath its deceiving exterior. We learn that the ordinary can rapidly change, and the extraordinary become normal. We can accept what we are, who others perceive us to be, and what we may become. But only if we realize we inhabit a world of diminishing returns, and truthfully . . . we are not here. "Alistair's collection of stories is an incredibly cerebral, dark adventure that leaves you contemplating every shadowy corner in your house." Tasha Reynolds, The Sinister Scoop
