EBOOK
Pages
288
Year
2026
Language
English

About

From one of the most exciting recent talents in ghost stories comes a spinetingling seaside folk horror novel, set against the blackouts of the 1970s



When the lights go out

You can lose sight of what is real . . .

It is the 1970s. A young woman, Rosie, moves to a small remote seaside village, readying to welcome her first child. But with her partner working away on an oil rig, the house isn't the sanctuary she'd hoped for - the situation made worse by the regular blackouts due to the ongoing miners' strikes. And the villagers seem friendly enough, but some of them are taking an uncomfortably close interest in her pregnancy.

Before long, Rosie notices strange noises and unexplained shadows in the corners of the cottage. As her birth date moves closer and the blackouts intensify, her isolation begins to consume her until she feels that she is losing her grip on reality.



But Rosie isn't the only one in the village who has cause to fear the dark . . .



Praise for Amanda Mason



'A near-perfect ghost story' Guardian, on The Wayward Girls



'Satisfyingly unsettling, this is a hugely atmospheric novel that oozes with uncanny menace' Lucie McKnight Hardy on The Hiding Place



'Mason is one of the best ghost story writers around today' Jess Kidd



'A chillingly claustrophobic read' Daily Mirror, on The Wayward Girls



'A supernatural tour-de-force' Daily Mail on The Hiding Place Amanda Mason was born and brought up in Whitby, North Yorkshire. She studied Theatre at Dartington College of Arts, where she began writing by devising and directing plays. Her short stories have been published in several anthologies. Her debut novel, The Wayward Girls was a dark and captivating story of sisterhood and family secrets, followed by The Hiding Place, a haunting novel about mothers and daughters. Her short story, Three Times, Lefthandwise, was shortlisted for the V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize in 2021. The Dark is her third novel. A spinetingling folk horror novel set in a north Yorkshire seaside village in the 1970s, against the blackouts An unmissable home-grown folk horror novel for fans of Andrew Michael Hurley and Francine Toon Amanda is the lauded author of The Wayward Girls - praised by the Guardian as 'a near-perfect ghost story'. Amanda Mason lives in Whitby - close to Staithes, which inspired the setting for this novel - and is well connected with other authors in the genre as well as the local literary scene.

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