In her first collection, award-winning author Helen Grant plumbs the depths of the uncanny. Ten fathoms down, where the light filtering through the salt water turns everything grey-green, something awaits unwary divers. A self-aggrandising art critic travelling in rural Slovakia finds love with a beauty half his age—and pays the price. In a small German town, a nocturnal visitor preys upon children; there is a way to keep it off—but the ritual must be perfect. A rock climber dares to scale a local crag with a diabolical reputation, and makes a shocking discovery at the top. In each of these seven tales, unpleasantries and grotesqueries abound—and Grant reminds us with each one that there can be fates even worse than death.
Author
Helen Grant (born 1964 in London) is an author of novels for young adults, now based in Scotland. Her first novel, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, was published by Penguin Books in April 2009.[1] It was shortlisted for the Booktrust Teenage Prize and the CILIP Carnegie Medal. It has also been published in Germany as Die Mädchen des Todes, and has been published in Spain, Holland and the US. Her second novel, The Glass Demon, was published by Penguin in May 2010. It was shortlisted for the ITW Awards Best Paperback Original category. Her third novel Wish Me Dead was published in 2011 and nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. In addition to her novels for young adults, she has been a regular contributor to the M.R. James Ghosts & Scholars Newsletter. Her short fiction and non fiction have been published in Supernatural Tales, All Hallows and by the Ash Tree Press. She has also provided a new translation of E.T.A. Hoffmann's Das Öde Haus in The Sandman & Other Night Pieces (Tartarus Press). Helen's most recent novels are Silent Saturday (2013), Demons of Ghent (2014) and Urban Legends (2015), which form a trilogy of urbex-themed thrillers. In 2018 Helen's new novel, Ghost, will be published by Fledgling Press. Ghost is the first of Helen's books to be set in Scotland.
