Crooked Houses – Various (Egaeus Press)

Description

Alas! Is there a theme in supernatural fiction more prone to cliché and cozy familiarity than the haunted house story?

With this mammoth new anthology, Egaeus Press aims to reclaim that supremely primal tradition, not only from glossy movies, cartoons and television-era ghost hunters, but also from the Victorians, and the great, academic spook story authors of the 20th Century who, by their nature, sought to calibrate, anthropomorphise and provide justification for acts by forces which might hitherto have been considered beyond the scope of human comprehension.

Crooked Houses takes its cue from this earlier age. Though many of the stories presented are set in the modern world, the forces which pervade are primeval, unquantifiable; the stuff of folk-tales, family curses and collective nightmares.

These houses have very deep roots. These houses have teeth.

The book comprises 17 specially written stories. The full table of contents is as follows:

YOUR HOUSE, ANY HOUSE. THAT HOUSE. — Rebecca Kuder
THE SULLIED PANE — Richard Gavin
THE SHEPHERD’S HOUSE — Colin Insole
THE WEST WINDOW — Helen Grant
THE PSYCHOMANTEUM — Steve Duffy
THE CRUMBLIES — Reggie Oliver
THE DEVIL WILL BE AT THE DOOR — David Surface
THE HOUSE OF THE MERE — John Gale
FAIREST OF THEM ALL — Albert Power
MIASMATA — Lynda E. Rucker
THE READERS OF THE SANDS — Mark Valentine
DOLL’S HOUSE — Carly Holmes
AT LOTHESLEY, MONTGOMERYSHIRE, 1910 — James Doig
IN CROMER ROAD — Rebecca Lloyd
HOUSE OF SAND — Katherine Haynes
MYTHOLOGY — Jane Jakeman
THE PINER HOUSE — Timothy Granville