literary fiction
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4,739 words · About a 24-minute read. 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 century
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2,990 words · About a 15-minute read. Rhett lifted the brush, then stopped. Charlotte’s face lay beneath the lamp, pale and beautiful, but not at peace. The docket said ‘Cerebral Haemorrhage’. Her skin said otherwise. For ten years, Streindarke had trusted his hand to soften truth. Tonight, for the first time, he meant to leave…
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6,035 words · About a 30-minute read. 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 her mother’s…
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4,088 words · About a 20-minute read. In Duskdale, the arrival of winter deepens despair as a blight affects children, including young Pip. Emmie, seeking to save him, takes an apple from a forbidden orchard, causing a troubling shift in the village where memories of the dead fade. Ultimately, Emmie must sacrifice her memories of…
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2,219 words · About an 11-minute read. 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…