Strange Tales, Volume IV

Edited by Rosalie Parker.

This fourth volume of strange tales from Tartarus presents fifteen new stories in the fields of fantasy, horror, decadence and the supernatural.

Christopher Harman’s ‘By Leaf and Thorn’ mines the not-to-be underestimated magick of the English countryside, while John Howard’s uneasy timeslip piece ‘You Promised You Would Walk’ is set in modern Berlin. Rebecca Lloyd’s ‘Gone to the Deep’ explores the Celtic sea-myths of the Scottish isles, while Rhys Hughes’ ‘The Secret Passage’ follows the architectural obsession of a would-be good son.

Matt Leyshon has his ne’er-do-well anti-hero escape to a Greek island in ‘The Amber Komboloi’, while Angela Slatter’s ‘The Badger Bride’ follows the adventures of her shape-shifting, grown-up fairy-tale characters. H.V. Chao’s ‘The Recovery’ details a writer’s decadent working holiday in the South of France, while in ‘Drowning in Air’, Andrew Hook’s protagonist visits an anxiety filled, post-war Japan.

More stories of the highest quality — by John Gaskin, Jason A. Wyckoff, Richard Hill, Alan McIntosh, V.H. Leslie, Mark Francis and Andrew Apter — contribute to a fascinating, rewarding, and sometimes bracing trip through the highways and byways of contemporary strange fiction.

Containing:

• 'By Leaf and Thorn' by Christopher Harman
• 'The Secret Passage' by Rhys Hughes
• 'Gone to the Deep' by Rebecca Lloyd
• 'You Promised You Would Walk' by John Howard
• 'Forth' by A.J. McIntosh
• 'Preservation' by V.H. Leslie
• 'The Man Who Wore His Father’s Clothes' by Andrew Apter
• 'The Badger Bride' by Angela Slatter
• 'The Amber Komboloi' by Matt Leyshon
• 'For a Last Spark of the Divine' by Mark Francis
• 'The Recovery' by H.V. Chao
• 'Drowning in Air' by Andrew Hook
• 'The Homunculus in the Curio' by Jason A. Wyckoff
• 'Time' by Richard Hill
• 'The Memento Mori' by John Gaskin

Strange Tales IV is a sewn hardback book of 252 pages with silk ribbon marker, decorated boards, head and tailbands, and d/w. Limited to 350 copies.

Cover artwork by Stephen J Clark of The Singing Garden.

Publication 20th January 2014.

ISBN 978-1-905784-60-8.