Join us for a deligtfully dark and macabre evening as we celebrate the release of two brilliant new horror novels – Susan Barker’s Old Soul and Lucy Rose’s The Lamb. Susan and Lucy will be discussing their work with author Beth Underdown (The Witchfinder’s Sister, The Key in the Lock)
Tickets are £5.00 each, £16.99 including a copy of Old Soul or The Lamb, or £30 for a ticket and a copy of both books (saving you £3.98 off the RRP) Light refreshments are included in the ticket price.
Event starts at 6:30pm (doors at 6pm)
About the books:
Old Soul by Susan Barker
The woman never goes by the same name.
She never stays in the same place too long.
She never ages. She never dies.
But those around her do.
When two grieving strangers meet by chance in Osaka airport they uncover a disturbing connection. Jake’s best friend and Mariko’s twin brother each died, 6,000 miles apart, in brutal and unfathomable circumstances.
Each encountered a mesmerising, dark-haired woman in the days before their deaths. A woman who came looking for Mariko – and then disappeared.
Jake, who has carried his loss and guilt for a decade, finds himself compelled to follow the trail set by Mariko’s revelations. It’s a trail that weaves across continents and centuries, leading back to the many who have died – in strange and terrifying and eerily similar ways – and those they left behind: bewildered, disbelieved, yet resolutely sure of what they saw.
And, at the centre of it all, there is the same beguiling woman. Her name may have changed, but her purpose has never wavered, and as Jake races to discover who, or what she is, she has already made her next choice.
But will knowing her secret be enough to stop her?
The Lamb by Lucy Rose
A folk tale. A horror story. A love story. An enchantment.
Margot and Mama have lived by the forest since Margot can remember. When Margot isn’t at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.
But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, little Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires and make a bid for freedom.
With this tender coming-of-age tale, debut novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire and animal instincts – and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.
About the Authors:
Susan Barker is the author of four books. Her third novel, The Incarnations, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and Notable Book, a Kirkus Reviews’ Top Ten Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. An excerpt from Old Soul won a Northern Writers’ Award for Fiction in 2020, as well as funding from Arts Council England and The Society of Authors. Susan currently lives in Manchester, where she is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Lucy Rose is a writer and filmmaker with an interest in the gothic, girlhood and horror. Her short fiction and personal essays have been published in Dread Central, Mslexia, Ghouls on Film and more. She’s proud to be a Curtis Brown Creative Breakthrough alumni writer and one of Mslexia’s featured columnists and fiction writers. In early 2023, she was awarded Arts Council DYCP funding for literary development. She currently lives in Newcastle.
