Author
Catherine McCarthy
Author
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.
A Moonlit Path of Madness
A Moonlit Path of Madness, a Gothic novel set in Wales, by Catherine McCarthy
Inheriting a family heirloom in the form of an antique clock with a broken moon dial as well as a seaside house in Wales, Grace Morgan mourns the loss of her mother and dreads the manifestation of a family curse that threatens to lay claim to her and everything she holds dear.
Release date July 11th 2023.
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.
Mosaic
When Robin Griffiths embarks upon the restoration of a stained-glass window in a thirteenth-century church, little does she comprehend the stakes involved.
The more slivers of glass she pieces together, the more she realizes things are not what they appear to be in the seemingly cozy hamlet of Bilbury.
"A masterful blend of folk and cosmic horror."
Tim McGregor, author of Lure and Wasps in the Ice Cream
SOMETHING WICKED WAITS
The Wolf and the Favour
Ten-year-old Hannah has Down syndrome and oodles of courage, but should she trust the beautiful tree creature who smells of Mamma’s perfume or the blue-eyed wolf who warns her not to enter the wood under any circumstance?
The Wolf and the Favour is a tale of love, trust, and courage. A tale that champions the neurodivergent voice and proves that the true power of a person’s strength lies within themselves.
The House at the End of Lacelean Street
It's midnight and in the midst of an ice storm when Claudia Dance boards the bright yellow bus to Lacelean Street, a destination she has never heard of. She has no coat, no luggage, and no clue as to why she left home. In fact, she has no memory of her past whatsoever, and yet she feels compelled to make the trip. She will come to realize that salvation lies within the red-brick house at the end of Lacelean Street, a salvation granted by the strange power that dwells within. Sanity will be questioned, limits tested, and answers revealed... But at what price