Revealing the horror

Many things can add that extra frisson of fear to horror fiction. Prime among them we might think of the time of day or the weather, the device we know and love as pathetic fallacy. A bleak and stormy

IN A GAME FILLED WITH HORROR CLICHÉS, THIS ONE NATURALLY BEGINS ON A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT, WHEN A COUPLE OF KIDS ENTER AN ABANDONED MANSION. JOIN US AS WE TOO STEP INSIDE THE SPLATTERHOUSE – AND IF YOU’RE FEELING FAINT, JUST KEEP REPEATING, “IT’S ONLY A VIDEOGAME… ONLY A VIDEOGAME…”

What makes a novel of ideas?

Spotlight on readers’ excellent images and how they captured them

The opening of my first novel Heatstroke came to me in what Stevie Nicks would call a ‘crystal vision’. I was at work, seized by an impulse, and typed straight into an email what are still – give or t

The last time erotica had a moment, Fifty Shades turned bondage into water cooler chat. Now, the genre’s back – only this time, the safe words are spells. But while fans of ‘romantasy’ say the sex is out of this world, what does our collective appetite for so-called ‘faerie smut’ say about the sex we’re really having...or not?