historical fiction
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Ralph Travers, a curate in Exeter, struggles with his conscience after inadvertently making the Devil, Bucky, known to children through a rhyme. As children start disappearing, he faces the consequences of his actions.
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In a series of intertwined tales, women at fairs confront the consequences of seeking love through an ancient ash charm. Each one learns that desires shape their fates, often leading to regret.
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At St Mildred’s, every blessing has a shadow. Cecily Scratcher waits beneath the lychgate to tell seven old warnings of beauty, grace, sorrow, roads, love, labour, and goodness, and of the children made to carry what adults should not.
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About a 40-minute read or 1hr 3-minute listen. In Hagley Stile, magpies are never merely birds. One by one, the old rhyme becomes a reckoning as sorrow, joy, birth, theft, silver, gold and secrets gather beneath black-and-white wings.
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About a 24-minute read or a 36-minute listen. At White Head Lighthouse, Thomas Darling keeps the lamp burning through a violent storm. Then a half-drowned stowaway brings a warning about his former berth, SS Strumble, an empty ship, recorded lost, and now carrying ticking machinery that can calculate the future, and perhaps alter the coming…
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About a 22-minute read or a 34-minute listen. Three days after the battle at Arfderydd, Brother Robert searches for the missing bard, Merlin, amidst the devastation. As he and two others navigate the battlefield, they grapple with the dead king Gwenddolau’s unburied body, Merlin’s potential madness, and the need for a proper farewell.
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About a 30-minute read or a 41 minute listen. Jess Harwood returns to her late mother’s home after seven years, uncovering memories and remnants of her mother’s life and secrets. As she begins to help the village with herbal remedies, she discovers a powerful stone, the Eye of the Dracan, which deepens her connection to…
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About a 13-minute read or a 20-minute listen. During the reign of King Stephen, two children of strange green hue were discovered near Woolpit in Suffolk, speaking in an unknown tongue and refusing all common food save raw beans. What follows is not a retelling of that story, but an imagined prelude to it
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About an 11-minute read or 17-minute listen. In 1812, French artist Théodore Géricault painted ‘The Severed Heads’. With a reputation for macabre works, and a morgue supplying him with subjects, this was just one of several. The pair were unknown but France was in the turmoil of post-revolutionary governance, so who could this couple have…
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About an 8-minute read or 14-minute listen. Lady Katherine Bulkeley grapples with a letter concerning the crown’s inquiry into her abbey, feeling the weight of change and uncertainty. In the chapel, she encounters the spirits of Henry and Rosamund, who share insights on legacy, authority, and love.