Author
Catherine McCarthy
Author
Door and other twisted tales
Botany Bay, 1790 – One by one, a colony of white-skinned pioneers disappear from their camp. Did the legendary rainbow serpent of the Dreamtime, Goorialla, wreak revenge on the ghosts for disturbing its sacred watering hole?
North-east coast of Japan 2011, vicinity of Fukushima Nuclear Plant – Seismic waves on the Pacific Ocean floor cause a catastrophic tsunami. The mythical giant catfish, Namazu, is believed to seek retribution for human greed by creating earthquakes. Could it be to blame?
Door and Other Twisted Tales is a collection of ten, dark portal stories, each set in a different place, a different time, yet woven together by visitations from the supernatural which result in the death, destruction, and disappearance of humans in recompense for their actions.
From Plague – the embodiment of the 14th Century Black Death, to Shams – a contemporary tale of the mystics of quantum physics and the mind, Door will lead you on a journey through time and place as the consequences of greed, impulse, loneliness, and fear are exposed.
Mists and Megaliths
Welcome to Wales, land of mists and megaliths, where mythical creatures and ancient spirits lurk in the strangest of places.
This collection of 10 supernatural stories offers a flurry of folklore, a gathering of ghosts, and even a cosmic cave creature.
Stories include...
Lure: A fisherman who nets the tail fin of a lure becomes obsessed with finding the rest, but what else lies hidden in the ancient lake?
Carreg Samson: A Neolithic burial chamber stares out to sea, remembering times long since past, but when it loses its heart of stone to a young girl the repercussions are hard to bear.
Coblynau: An old man watches the mountain which was once a slag heap of coal. He listens for the knock of the Coblynau, certain they will come for him... soon, just like they did to warn of the Aberfan disaster.
Author Catherine McCarthy’s second collection invites the reader on a regional journey, evoking a sense of quiet horror from the cosmic to the Gothic.
Immortelle
When Elinor’s daughter, Rowena, is found poisoned and dead in an animal trough, Elinor is sure the local parish priest is to blame.
A ceramic artist by trade and influenced by her late grandmother’s interest in supernatural magic, Elinor crafts an immortelle for Rowena’s grave and attempts to capture the girl’s spirit in the clay model of a starling. Soon she is inundated with requests for immortelles and the more immersed in the craft she becomes, the greater her powers grow.
As the dead share their secrets with grieving Elinor, she learns the sordid truth of what happened to her beloved daughter and plots a revenge so hideous, it must be kept a secret forever.