H.E. Bulstrode's Blog, page 3
May 6, 2018
New Release - an Edwardian Occult Mystery
Upon Barden Moor: An Occult Mystery.
Only 99p/99c for a limited period on Amazon Kindle (6th-15th May). Also available in paperback: mybook.to/UponBardenMoor (Kindle); mybook.to/UponBardenMoorpb (paperback).
Death was wending its way to the moor: slowly, surely, methodically. It was a day that had been many months in the planning, and the ritual, so well rehearsed, was about to be enacted. It would be a solemn end, for without that, it would be nothing; this was how it had to be.
Welcome to Yorkshire, 1949. A village schoolmaster leaves a mysterious note, and as the drama unfolds, the reader is transported back to a stifling afternoon upon the moor some forty or so years earlier, for this, it would seem, is a moment in time with which his fate has become inextricably bound.
The reader should be aware that one of the characters makes extensive use of Yorkshire dialect, which employs non-standard English spelling and grammar.
April 10, 2018
Satirical Occult Mystery Offer
Gwydion’s Dawn. Free on Kindle Tuesday 10th to Saturday 14th April: myBook.to/GwydionsDawn
Embark upon a satirical journey into England’s occult underworld, courtesy of Gwydion Turner, a man as obsessed with his quest to realise the ‘Great Work’ as he is annoyed that Jefferson Airplane ‘stole’ his riff for their hit White Rabbit. Now he strolls the streets of Glastonbury dreaming of Haight-Ashbury and Crowley, his mind muffled in a purple haze. Is he a buffoon, a killer, or a sage? There is, it seems, a whiff of death about the man.
Embark upon a satirical journey into England’s occult underworld, courtesy of Gwydion Turner, a man as obsessed with his quest to realise the ‘Great Work’ as he is annoyed that Jefferson Airplane ‘stole’ his riff for their hit White Rabbit. Now he strolls the streets of Glastonbury dreaming of Haight-Ashbury and Crowley, his mind muffled in a purple haze. Is he a buffoon, a killer, or a sage? There is, it seems, a whiff of death about the man.
March 13, 2018
H.E. Bulstrode's Email List Sign-up Live!
At last, I've managed to get to grips with the technology required to offer readers the chance to sign up to my email list.
To be the first to hear about my new releases, special offers and giveaways, please click on the link below and enter your details. Something new is coming soon, and those who sign up will learn when it will be available for a discounted price. Your data will be kept confidential and not shared with anyone else, so you will only receive news relating to my publications and promotions.
https://my.sendinblue.com/users/subsc...
To be the first to hear about my new releases, special offers and giveaways, please click on the link below and enter your details. Something new is coming soon, and those who sign up will learn when it will be available for a discounted price. Your data will be kept confidential and not shared with anyone else, so you will only receive news relating to my publications and promotions.
https://my.sendinblue.com/users/subsc...
March 10, 2018
A Tale of Necromancy Spanning the Centuries
Posting has been, and will be, a little light for a while whilst I focus on completing an occult mystery that has been a year in development. Although it differs in a number of respects from the tales that I have released to date, it possesses in common with them a pronounced streak of dry humour, and should appeal to readers who have enjoyed what I have published so far.
The germ of the idea for this story arose from stumbling across a report relating to a strange, and markedly disturbing, incident that occurred in Wharfedale during the reign of Henry VIII. As it involved suspicions relating to the local lord at the time, a learned, cruel, and decidedly perverse individual with an interest in necromancy, it struck me as providing apt material for an equally dark tale, albeit one which straddles not only decades, but centuries. It is set, therefore, in Yorkshire, rather than in the West Country, which represents something of an exotic geographic departure for me.
Whereas the intention had been for it to be of a length in line with some of my other stories – perhaps totalling 20,000 words – I found that as time progressed and the plot became more complex, the projected word count grew greater, and the publication date more distant. As it is as yet unfinished, I cannot say for certain what its final length will be, but it is likely to be in the region of 45,000 words. Whether it should be classed as a long novella or a short novel, I’m not sure, perhaps because it will be both. With respect to publication, I anticipate that it will either be a little before, or a little after, Easter. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled, as for the first fortnight I will be discounting it at 99p/99c, with the price increasing to £1.99/$2.99 thereafter.
The germ of the idea for this story arose from stumbling across a report relating to a strange, and markedly disturbing, incident that occurred in Wharfedale during the reign of Henry VIII. As it involved suspicions relating to the local lord at the time, a learned, cruel, and decidedly perverse individual with an interest in necromancy, it struck me as providing apt material for an equally dark tale, albeit one which straddles not only decades, but centuries. It is set, therefore, in Yorkshire, rather than in the West Country, which represents something of an exotic geographic departure for me.
Whereas the intention had been for it to be of a length in line with some of my other stories – perhaps totalling 20,000 words – I found that as time progressed and the plot became more complex, the projected word count grew greater, and the publication date more distant. As it is as yet unfinished, I cannot say for certain what its final length will be, but it is likely to be in the region of 45,000 words. Whether it should be classed as a long novella or a short novel, I’m not sure, perhaps because it will be both. With respect to publication, I anticipate that it will either be a little before, or a little after, Easter. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled, as for the first fortnight I will be discounting it at 99p/99c, with the price increasing to £1.99/$2.99 thereafter.
February 5, 2018
New Release: Uncanny Tales
A new anthology in which four tales of the weird and the uncanny spring forth from the English soil. Within these pages the reader will encounter four spirits: a Celtic goddess thirsting for vengeance; a mysterious sickle-wielding hedger; a mediaeval animalistic heretic, and a personification of Death that has journeyed far from its Breton homeland. Some are guardians of their place and of their values, caring not for contemporary social mores, or those who cleave to them. Woe to those who care to transgress what they deem to be right! Others wreak a vengeance upon the living to make them atone for perceived injustices, unleashing chaos in the personal lives and relationships of their chosen victims.
From the near-contemporary settings of The Rude Woman of Cerne and The Ghost of Scarside Beck, to the Victorian era and far further back still in At Fall of Night and Epona, each of these tales is firmly rooted in the strangeness of rural England. All four are ghost stories, but also draw upon folk horror, the gothic, historical fiction, and satire. Available from Amazon in paperback http://mybook.to/uncannytalespb
and Kindle formats myBook.to/uncannytales
Kindle version free to read for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
January 29, 2018
The Supernatural Charm of the English Countryside
It seems that there is scarcely a patch of earth in rural England that does not bear some trace of the lives of its former occupants, and one cannot help, at times, but feel that something of them lingers, lending the landscape a sense of the uncanny. Dotted about here and there are the remains of the monuments of prehistory and distant antiquity, their original names and functions lost with the passing of the people who built and used them, but beneath the soil, unseen to the eye, lies so much more. Some of those things that lie below were put there for a reason, whereas others were lost by their owners and, for one reason or another, never retrieved.
In the finding of such artefacts, the finder kindles a physical and tangible bond with the past, although the original owners can never be known, at least directly. These crafted pieces of metal, stone, and pottery may speak to us through their form of their past function, significance, and role, but of the specific personalities of the men and women who held them in their hands, they say but little. It is into this void of the unknowable that supernatural fiction dares to tread, with M.R. James providing many fine examples, with two of my favourites being Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad, and A Warning to the Curious.
In both instances, an object is found and taken by the finder, who soon discovers that retribution is not long in coming. In the first tale, it is a bone whistle protruding from a former graveyard upon a crumbling cliff edge that summons up the guardian spirit, whereas in the second it is the theft of an ancient Saxon crown from a burial mound that does the same. However, the nature of the spirit in A Warning to the Curious is somewhat unusual, for it is not connected, directly, to the former wearer of the crown that lies buried in the mound, but rather to a now extinct family of guardians, entrusted to watch over and protect the place of burial. The message of these tales is clear: do not take that which was placed in the ground for a purpose.
For some reason, which I cannot explain, I find this inadvertent release of the forces of psychic chaos somehow satisfying, and it is a device that I have employed in my latest tale Epona, a blend of Victorian gothic ghost story and folk horror, the title of which derives from the Romano-Celtic goddess of that name. If the reader should be curious to see what enfolds, then please click on the following universal Amazon link: myBook.to/Epona
In the finding of such artefacts, the finder kindles a physical and tangible bond with the past, although the original owners can never be known, at least directly. These crafted pieces of metal, stone, and pottery may speak to us through their form of their past function, significance, and role, but of the specific personalities of the men and women who held them in their hands, they say but little. It is into this void of the unknowable that supernatural fiction dares to tread, with M.R. James providing many fine examples, with two of my favourites being Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad, and A Warning to the Curious.
In both instances, an object is found and taken by the finder, who soon discovers that retribution is not long in coming. In the first tale, it is a bone whistle protruding from a former graveyard upon a crumbling cliff edge that summons up the guardian spirit, whereas in the second it is the theft of an ancient Saxon crown from a burial mound that does the same. However, the nature of the spirit in A Warning to the Curious is somewhat unusual, for it is not connected, directly, to the former wearer of the crown that lies buried in the mound, but rather to a now extinct family of guardians, entrusted to watch over and protect the place of burial. The message of these tales is clear: do not take that which was placed in the ground for a purpose.
For some reason, which I cannot explain, I find this inadvertent release of the forces of psychic chaos somehow satisfying, and it is a device that I have employed in my latest tale Epona, a blend of Victorian gothic ghost story and folk horror, the title of which derives from the Romano-Celtic goddess of that name. If the reader should be curious to see what enfolds, then please click on the following universal Amazon link: myBook.to/Epona
December 19, 2017
Creating a Series
At last, a couple of my books on Amazon have been linked in a series, which is odd really, as the first six tales that I penned were also a series - West Country Tales - and labelled as such, but Amazon never get around to formally grouping them in this manner. Having noticed that my two Tales of the Uncanny (myBook.to/talesuncanny) have been linked, I've dropped Amazon an email to see if the earlier six can be linked too. Maybe they'll deliver me an early Christmas present?
December 8, 2017
Occult and Supernatural Mysteries
Afternoon all. I currently have two countdown deals running on titles reduced from £1.99 to 99p, lasting until midnight Thursday 14th December. The first novella included involves occult goings on in Glastonbury with a wry edge (Gwydion's Dawn), whereas the second features a vengeful sickle-wielding Dorset hedger (The Rude Woman of Cerne) who's not quite what he seems, and really doesn't seem to take to sanctimonious hypocrite Beatrice Clemens. To preview or download from Amazon, please click on myBook.to/GwydionsDawn or myBook.to/rudewomanofcerne
Both are free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
Both are free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
December 2, 2017
A supernatural slice of seasonal Victorian Gothic
A new release: At Fall of Night. A supernatural slice of seasonal Victorian Gothic. Download from Amazon for 99c/99p, or free on Kindle Unlimited at myBook.to/AtFallofNight
Blurb
Monsieur Benoit Lavarnier, toast of the Parisian art world and a man of cultured accomplishments, remains, for all of his polished veneer, a son of the Breton soil, with all that this implies with respect to his superstitious beliefs. Commissioned to paint a portrait of renowned beauty, Lady Helena Brocklington, he arrives in the autumn of 1843 not only with the accoutrements of his trade, but also with something sinister lurking in his train. He soon finds himself so smitten with his subject, and so invested in his work, that the resultant piece becomes imbued with an essence that could, perhaps, be construed as something akin to a life force. Could it be, that so many decades after its completion, something beyond the paint itself endures?
An understated ghostly novelette, Victorian in sensibility and style, that immerses the reader in a tale of obsession, and terror.
November 13, 2017
'The Essex Serpent': a Case of ‘Colonitis’
This book is beautifully packaged. Its cover is adorned with sumptuous bucolic imagery through which wends the form of a green serpent, which together with its intriguing title proves sufficient to lure many a reader into making a purchase. Time and time again it has been said that both a book’s title and its cover are pivotal to its success, and given the enviable sales that the author has enjoyed with The Essex Serpent, these observations would appear, in this case, to have been borne out. But what of the book itself? What of its content? Does this prove to be equally beguiling?
It cannot be denied that Sarah Perry has a talent for description: much of it, especially where she is describing the landscape, possessing a beautiful and evocative quality that makes Nature itself a character. It also cannot be denied that she has a passion for colons bordering upon an obsession, which lends much of her prose a distinctly idiosyncratic quality. Now, before proceeding I must make it clear that I do not number amongst those who would relegate the colon, or its much maligned sibling the semi-colon, to the dustbin; but I am of the opinion that the author should know when, and where, they should be used. Ms Perry, irrespective of her doctorate ‘in creative writing from Royal Holloway’, appears not to know how to judiciously employ these helpful pieces of punctuation, and ought to, to borrow one of her own favoured words, use them more ‘parsimoniously’ in her prose. Moreover, both her proofreader and publisher should receive a severe dressing down for the nonsensical sentence that appears at the end of the penultimate paragraph on page 49.
Mud, cakes, macaroons and dresses are all described in minute and loving detail –repeatedly – so much so that ‘Mud, Cakes and Macaroons’ might make an equally apposite title for this volume, for they feature far more frequently in this meandering tale than the eponymous serpent that is notable throughout for its absence. Its presence slithers unseen through the undergrowth of dense prose, as elusive as any semblance of plot.
Her protagonist – Cora Seaborne – proved unsympathetic, as well as possessed of a certain self-important petulance that rankled. From the book’s description, I had been anticipating an intriguing novel of ideas, in which Seaborne’s scientific worldview parried with that of the Aldwinter vicar William Ransome, as well as a tale in which folklore featured rather more prominently than it did. Instead, it struck me as being a sluggish piece of chick lit crafted for a more educated readership than is usually the case with this genre, that whilst often beautifully written, possessed an underdeveloped plot that seemed to peter out. If its length had been trimmed by a third, its sense of drift might have been supplanted by some semblance of momentum.
The opening passages of this novel promised much, but upon finishing the book I felt as if I had been struggling through the oft-described mud only to find that the ill-defined form that I had pursued throughout had faded into the mist; vanished into nothingness. In place of a sense of satisfaction, its ending brought a feeling of a certain emptiness, and no desire to read anything further that this author may publish. A pity.
It cannot be denied that Sarah Perry has a talent for description: much of it, especially where she is describing the landscape, possessing a beautiful and evocative quality that makes Nature itself a character. It also cannot be denied that she has a passion for colons bordering upon an obsession, which lends much of her prose a distinctly idiosyncratic quality. Now, before proceeding I must make it clear that I do not number amongst those who would relegate the colon, or its much maligned sibling the semi-colon, to the dustbin; but I am of the opinion that the author should know when, and where, they should be used. Ms Perry, irrespective of her doctorate ‘in creative writing from Royal Holloway’, appears not to know how to judiciously employ these helpful pieces of punctuation, and ought to, to borrow one of her own favoured words, use them more ‘parsimoniously’ in her prose. Moreover, both her proofreader and publisher should receive a severe dressing down for the nonsensical sentence that appears at the end of the penultimate paragraph on page 49.
Mud, cakes, macaroons and dresses are all described in minute and loving detail –repeatedly – so much so that ‘Mud, Cakes and Macaroons’ might make an equally apposite title for this volume, for they feature far more frequently in this meandering tale than the eponymous serpent that is notable throughout for its absence. Its presence slithers unseen through the undergrowth of dense prose, as elusive as any semblance of plot.
Her protagonist – Cora Seaborne – proved unsympathetic, as well as possessed of a certain self-important petulance that rankled. From the book’s description, I had been anticipating an intriguing novel of ideas, in which Seaborne’s scientific worldview parried with that of the Aldwinter vicar William Ransome, as well as a tale in which folklore featured rather more prominently than it did. Instead, it struck me as being a sluggish piece of chick lit crafted for a more educated readership than is usually the case with this genre, that whilst often beautifully written, possessed an underdeveloped plot that seemed to peter out. If its length had been trimmed by a third, its sense of drift might have been supplanted by some semblance of momentum.
The opening passages of this novel promised much, but upon finishing the book I felt as if I had been struggling through the oft-described mud only to find that the ill-defined form that I had pursued throughout had faded into the mist; vanished into nothingness. In place of a sense of satisfaction, its ending brought a feeling of a certain emptiness, and no desire to read anything further that this author may publish. A pity.
