Holy Trinity, Buckfastleigh

 Hello all!

I hadn’t heard of Holy Trinity Church in Buckfastleigh until a couple of years ago. I was scouting around for book promo shoot locations when someone said to me, “What about the ruined church in Buckfastleigh? You know, the one with the cage over the grave.” I didn’t know what they meant but, of course, I was intrigued. They gave me directions and I told my partner, Jay, to pack his camera!

So, off we went. We were doing the shots for one of my books and also a promo shoot for my business Alter Ego. The place is exactly the sort of backdrop you’d expect for gothic photos: scorched stone, roofless walls, and the tower still standing watch over the graves. It was spooky, yes, but also surprisingly quiet. We pranced around the churchyard with our props, snapping photos among the headstones, and every now and then I’d catch myself looking over at the famous tomb in the corner. It is one thing to read about a caged grave and quite another to stand next to it.

Me and Tabs - the bestie - at the church

So, the history. Holy Trinity was Buckfastleigh’s parish church from the fifteenth century right through into the twentieth. Over time the town grew down in the valley and a new church was built closer to the people, leaving Holy Trinity less and less used. Then in 1992 vandals set it on fire, destroying the roof and gutting the inside. Over the years locals have embroidered the story, some say it was Satanists, others whisper about occult rituals. It fits the pattern: once a place already has a “dark” reputation, people pile on extra layers of myth to explain any later misfortune. Either way, the fire was real and today the church stands as a hollow ruin, open to the sky.

And then there is Richard Cabell. Cabell was the local squire of nearby Brook Manor in the seventeenth century, remembered less for any great deeds than for being cruel, corrupt, and generally despised by his neighbours. He died in 1677 with a reputation so black that locals built him a chest tomb of heavy stone and caged it with iron rails. Cabell was said to be violent, corrupt and irreligious, a man people feared enough to try to pin down even in death. The legends followed quickly. Stories of phantom hounds circling the tomb on stormy nights, of Cabell’s spirit roaming Dartmoor, of how Arthur Conan Doyle supposedly borrowed the tale for The Hound of the Baskervilles. Whether or not Doyle ever did hardly matters now, because the link has stuck.

What I found interesting, posing there amongst the ruins with my bestie, is how much of the story comes not from words but from sight. The tomb (which we didn't actually photograph, would you believe!) looks like a stage set. You don’t have to be told Cabell was wicked; the iron cage tells you. Other squires have been forgotten, their names on fading stones, but Cabell’s story clings because there is something to see, something to point at. Even with the church gutted, the legend feels louder than the history.

So, Holy Trinity isn’t just a ruin, it is folklore made solid. A ruined church, a caged grave, and centuries of stories still circling. We went there for photos, but what I came away with was a sense of how a place can hold a story long after everything else has burned away.

The White Lady of Radford: Ghosts, Folklore, and Forgotten Histories

 

For a couple of years I lived in Plymstock, not far from Radford, and it became one of my favourite places to walk my two dogs. The path leads you in under the trees, then down to the wide lake where swans and ducks float about on the still waters. On one side the ruined boathouse leans into the water, its roof gone, its windows hollow. Further along you find the folly castle standing guard on the bank, and in the middle of the grounds the remains of the old silo still rise up, a reminder of when the estate was more than just a park. It is a place where history shows through in fragments, every turn of the path hinting at what once stood there. 

The only thing that ever spoiled it for me was the South West Water plant tucked on the edge of the park. If you wander too near on the wrong day the air turns sharp and sewagey, a rude interruption to the otherwise gothic air of the lake and woods. 

Even so, I loved it, and I even used Radford for my books, sourcing the cover photographs for Ella’s Memoirs and The Black Marshes there among the ruins.

One of the raw images from the Haverleigh cover photos featuring Natasha Berry who posed as Ella.

The Ghost Stories

Radford has its share of ghost stories. A faceless monk is said to appear at the lodge gates. Drake himself is said to have been spotted there and people claimed servants' bells rang on their own in the long-ruined house before demolition. Dogs are said to shy away from the paths at night. The most famous of all is the White Lady.

The story of the White Lady at Radford is told in many ways. Most versions centre on a young woman of the family who drowns and whose ghost lingers by the water. First to mention is that "White Lady Ghosts" are a common figure in folklore, not just in Devon but across Europe. They are usually tied to stories of tragic love, suicide, or betrayal, women who died too soon and are said to wander in pale garments near the place of their death. The details change from place to place, yet the image is instantly recognisable. I have written before about the White Lady of Berry Pomeroy Castle, and you can read more about the whit ladies of folklore in my earlier blog post HERE

In one of the best-known tellings of Radford's white lady story, a girl of the house falls in love with a boy from Oreston. She is forbidden to see him, and the pair take a rowing boat onto the lake which overturns, drowning them both. Since then she has been seen in white, walking by the water or drifting across it on moonlit nights, searching for her lost love. A local road even bears her name, White Lady Road, keeping the tale alive.

I have come across several variations of this tale too, from blogs and heritage sites to Facebook posts and other retellings. The details shift with the teller. Sometimes the companion is a sweetheart, sometimes a close female friend of lower rank. Sometimes the lady drowns by accident, other times she chooses to end her life. A few versions move the setting away from Radford altogether and place her death at Hooe Lake. These contradictions are typical of folklore like this.

The ruined boathouse - photo by Mckinnon Images

The History:

Radford House was once the great seat of the Harris family, rising from a medieval manor into a grand Elizabethan mansion where Sir Christopher Harris, Member of Parliament for Plymouth and close associate of Sir Francis Drake, entertained figures tied to England’s naval exploits. Drake is said to have lodged at Radford during preparations against the Armada, and the Harris family held his will for a time, securing Radford’s place in that circle of sea-faring legend. The estate sprawled across what is now Radford Park, with ornamental gardens, a lake, a boathouse and, later, a little folly-castle built on the dam. By the nineteenth century the land was being parcelled and remodelled, its former grandeur slowly ebbing away. The twentieth century brought decline: the house stood increasingly empty, its contents sold, its walls left to rot, until the main building was finally demolished in 1937. What remains today are fragments: the lake, the lodge, and the boathouse ruins which are open and free to roam.

In several recountings of the folklore, I found mention of the white lady's drowning happening in the 1700s (18th century). In the 18th century there certainly were daughters and female relatives living at the house such as Susannah Harris and Anne Harris of the Bellevue and Hooe branch. Neither of these ladies drowned, though. In fact, after extensive searching through parish registers, inquest files, and local papers, I can confidently say that there is no record of any drowning there in the period usually implied by the legend. No named young woman lost to the water. No grief-stricken lover. Nothing of the sort.

There was, however, one incident that may have seeded rumour from a later period. In 1853, a twenty-year-old woman named only as "Mrs Revil" was discovered in Radford Lake with her baby in her arms. She and the child had both almost drowned, but ‘had the good luck’ to be pulled out by a passing doctor, who managed to revive them both. Mrs Revil lived not in Radford, but in Prince Rock, and had no recorded link to the house. Her actions were reported as an attempted suicide and attempted murder of the child in the Western Times (25 June 1853, p.7). The story travelled widely, reprinted in several newspapers across England, including in London. It is tragic, sensational, and close enough to the setting that later retellings may have shaped it into something ghostly.

More telling still is the silence in the literature. I cannot find any written version of the Radford White Lady prior to a local guidebook in the 1990s. The most-cited online account is an unsourced ghost story book printed in 2010. The demolition-era reporting (for example, Western Morning News, 27 July 1935, p.7) describes the house falling into ruin. It speaks of echoes of Drake and of bells heard on still evenings, but no pale figure by the lake. Those latter details seem to have grown later, perhaps from oral stories told around the time when the estate was derelict and romantic to imagine.

So the White Lady of Radford is both ghost and gap: a figure who may never have lived at all, yet whose presence has outlasted those who did. Walking the water’s edge at dusk, I can see why she has appeared as a local legend.

A Forgotten Haunting

 Bowden House stands just outside Totnes in the parish of Ashprington, a building with layers of history written into its very walls. A manor has existed here since at least the medieval period. In the early 1500s John Gyles built a grand Tudor house on the site, complete with carved chimneypieces and panelled interiors. A century later, in 1704, Nicholas Trist purchased Bowden and transformed it, refacing the Tudor core in the elegant Queen Anne style that still dominates its south and east fronts. By the 1800s the Adams family (not the spooky one!) had taken over, leaving their own mark on the fabric of the house. Today, the Grade I listed property is home to the Bowden House Community, an intentional eco-community that has lived there since 2005.

                                                        (image taken from wiki)

That’s the official history... but there’s another side to Bowden’s story, one that’s almost been lost.

So, I was working on my Conversations About Ghosts project, when a story led me to research a location close to the house. This started a stirring... I had this nagging feeling - this buried memory.  I was SURE the house ran ghost tours back in the 1990s! Proper guided walks, with glossy little leaflets stacked on tourist stands alongside Paignton Zoo and Crealy Adventure Park. I could see the leaflets in my head, remember the talk of hauntings, but when I searched online there was nothing. Not a word. It started to feel like a false memory, one of those odd tricks where you’re sure something happened, yet everyone else looks at you blankly. It was odd!

I didn't think about it again, then, but just recently, I was writing up some history and background for the book and, since I had a free afternoon, I decided to give it a deep dive. At first, much of the same... that being, nothing at all. Then, at last, I stumbled across a post on an obscure Fortean forum where someone described the very tours I remembered. Right down to the details. The relief of knowing I hadn’t dreamt it was immense. Even better, I eventually unearthed newspaper clippings from the early 90s confirming the tours had been real.

According to those old reports, visitors claimed to have seen ghostly monks chanting in the dead of night, Elizabethan figures drifting through the halls, and the famous “girl in blue” on the staircase. Others spoke of invisible dogs brushing past their legs, cold hands tugging at their clothes, and even a disembodied arm floating across the lounge. Guides in Georgian costume led groups room by room, keeping a sightings book of every chilling account.

Proof at last. I knew it.

What strikes me now is how little trace remains. For a while Bowden was painted as one of the most haunted houses in Devon, with stories of dozens of different ghosts drifting through its corridors. Now there is almost nothing.  Apart from those buried newspaper articles and that single forum thread, it’s as though the ghost tours never happened. Maybe they ended when the house became a community in 2005, or maybe they were just a short-lived 90s curiosity that faded quietly into memory.

 
Hauntings often flare up in the public imagination and then fade away again like this though. In the 1930s, for example, Borley Rectory  (in Essex) was everywhere in the newspapers, branded the “most haunted house in England.” but but after a fire and years of scepticism it faded into obscurity. Whilst those of us who are interested int he topic still know the name, there are no recent stories. In the 1970s and 80s Chingle Hall (Lancashire) was drawing crowds for its ghost tours until the doors shut and the stories fell quiet. Even Pluckley in Kent, once promoted as the “most haunted village in England,” has slipped into relative obscurity after years of ghostly fame. Bowden House seems to follow the same pattern. For a short time it was a place of leaflets and late-night whispers, before vanishing almost completely from memory. Its haunting, like so many others, was not just about ghosts but about the way we remember and forget them.

Gothic Romance - A Dead Genre?

* NOTE - this was originally written for Women's day 2020. 

With today being international women's day, I thought I'd write a little amble on the genre where I started writing (and reading). Gothic Romance. Perhaps the "anti women's day" genre in form of content, but a genre which is riddled with female influence, both in character base and in female authors. 

Background: I was a young reader, and so when I was about 12 I was done with children's books, no longer finding them a challenge. Coming from a fairly impoverished background, my mother, rather than buy me new books, just gave me access to the more "child-friendly" of her own bookshelf! Perhaps it was this, at such an impressionable age, which modelled the way my youthful brain worked, and instilled in me a sense of utter romance, as well as a love of the darker side of history, gothic, and Victoriana. You see, my mother was completely and utterly obsessed with a writer named Victoria Holt, and due to the lack of anything above PG in content, it was these I was given permission to read, initially. 

Writing: I think it is honest to say that there are elements of gothic romance in most of my novels. Even my supernatural novels contain the staples of the genre, especially in the parts which cover historical content. However, I have also written 5 pure gothic romance novels too. These are as yet unpublished, however I am hoping to bring you the first, "The Lunatic of Thornham Heights" or "The House Above the Waves", very soon. These books are 100% an indulgence for me as a writer, however, in a modern era, a modern touch was needed in the creation of such stories. I love the tropes, the atmosphere, the "feeling of such books", however, with this being a genre which was born in a very different era to the one we live in, a modernisation was also needed.

Gothic romance as a genre - the history: Ok, so gothic romance is a genre almost as old as pure gothic, if not older in some ways. By pure gothic, I mean famous stories such as Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein and so on. Gothic Romance is a similar genre but with some distinct differences. It is a genre which relies on romance and intrigue to further the story however, there are often elements of the supernatural, or at least hints towards it (sometimes in a scooby-doo-esque style - "no it wasn't a ghost, it was the mad old woman in the attic the whole time!"). Gothic Romance is a female driven genre, often written in a female voice. Examples of it often incorporate a lonely and mysterious feel, using scenery such as eerie old mansions, isolated moors, sometimes with a heroine being sent to another country where everything is strange and alien to them. Some people also consider work such as that of the Bronte sisters to be in this genre, especially Jane Eyre, which holds all the tropes of gothic romance.  This genre is often considered to have been founded in 1764 with a novel called the Castle of Otranto.

The genre laid low for some time in the latter part of the Victorian era, never quite finding its feet, however it was revived by writers such as Daphne Du Maurier in the 1940s, with her most famous work, Rebecca, falling very neatly into the genre. This is no coincidence as it is well-known that Du Maurier was heavily influenced by the Bronte sisters. By the 1950s, the genre was on the rise again. Here
we had female writers such as Victoria Holt, Constance Haven, and Mary Stewart creating a 1950s lens on the genre. This created a very unique view - 1950s women writing stories of  1800s women! Perhaps in some ways, both groups the underlings of what feminists would term the patriarchy. This is apparent in the writing - glaringly so! The traditional gothic romance sets up a tragic heroine who needs to be rescued. She should be "plucky and headstrong", but ultimately require saving by a "strong man". Perhaps this is why this genre is now so under represented by modern writers? People shy away from such outdated stereotypes, and yet I quite enjoy playing with the genre and stretching it's boundaries. 

One of the things I like to do most is to take the "strong male lead" off of his pedestal. The untouchable "perfect man" in such stories is often as unrealistic as the submitting doe of the female lead. Giving them back their humanity is something I've striven for over and over. To do this, I've used tools such as mental illness, (the Lunatic of Thornham Heights), and poverty (So long my Sorrow) for example. Swap the stereotypes, turn them upside down. A rich woman with a penniless lover, a man who suffers depression and anxiety, male spiritualists, female sceptics. I've also added homosexuality and bisexuality to my novels - not just because I want to raise awareness that it was historically present, but also to push the boundaries of a genre which never previously accepted it. I have also written about race , adding people of colour to the very whitewashed and often racist genre. (The House Above the Waves has a strong message against racism, whilst exploring it in the context of its era.) Again, though, I'm getting off topic! My point is that just because a genre is outdated, does not mean it cannot be modernised, whilst still maintaining the tropes at its core! 

Let me know what you think in the comments :) 

Conversations About Ghosts

 Ok so as some of you may know from following my work, I have been writing a book of "true" ghost stories for about a million years. I'm still collecting stories so if you have one please do send me an email via the address on my profile :) 

I have written an essay for the end of the book to discuss the concept of ghosts and ghost stories further. To add context, in my final year of my psych degree before I moved over to History, I decided to write my dissertation on the development of stories - more specifically ghost stories. In the end I did end up working on something a bit different (but still ghost related!). This essay began then and was tweaked, edited and perfected recently. 

In her 2007 research paper on ghosts in folklore, Jeannie Thomas made an assertion which I think is very relevant:

 ‘regardless of what scholars assert, people will go on narrating anomalous experiences and choosing to believe in either scientific or supernatural explanations.’[1]

 This is basically stating that no matter what researchers say, in the end people tend to have very strong opinions about whether ghost stories have a scientific or supernatural cause, but regardless of that, people will continue to tell them! And perhaps this is the case. Paranormal experiences and beliefs are described generally as the belief in, or experience of, phenomena which ‘violate basic limiting principles of science’.[2] That is, that they are outside of what would be considered acceptable if the laws of science are adhered to. In 2009 this view was challenged by a researcher named Irwin, stating that this definition is not adequate and that to dismiss the study of paranormal phenomena is to dismiss any chance to further the understanding of it.[3] It could be argued that these experiences and beliefs are natural in cause, and that the current views and understandings of science are simply not developed enough yet to add explanations. There is also an offshoot of psychology called Parapsychology which tried to find scientific proof of paranormal experiences too. This is where I come into the picture. As a Psychology undergraduate, I had the honour of working with Susan Blackmore (renowned believer turned sceptic through research) to conduct my own study into the way that people perceive ghosts, tell ghost stories, and formulate an understanding of the supernatural, from a psychologist’s perspective. Unfortunately I left the field after my degree but perhaps if I had stuck with it, my career might have been very different indeed!

 

Whilst the concept of a spirit or ghost has been around for longer than any scholar can pinpoint, the classic ‘ghost story’ as we know it now, seems to have begun development somewhere in the medieval period. It is here that the modern ghost was born and became separate from the medieval understanding of the term.[4] And of course, there was something of a burst of ghost stories too, especially in late medieval (Tudor) England. Henry and his wives who are said to haunt various royal houses, Shakespeare with his plays such as Hamlet. However, it is the long nineteenth century (1770 – 1900ish) which has been identified as the ‘golden age of gothic’. It is here where the ghost story as we now know it really blossomed, and began to take the format we know today.

As to that format, one thing which I have come across more than once, is the notion of ‘common elements’ in ghost stories. These are things which have now become a part of the fabric which makes up the stories themselves and tend to wind themselves into lots of tales. Cliché’s if you like. These cliché’s when they come up, do tend to ring alarm bells for me. In some cases it’s more of a psychological phenomenon where people feel that they need to weave such things into a ghost story to have it taken seriously. For me, however, they tend to do the opposite, although this does not necessarily invalidate the story! ‘I fainted’ or I ‘screamed’ are examples of this. Unless perhaps it was the ghost of somebody very close to a person, for example, fainting is unlikely. In fear, our bodies tend to elicit a fight or flight response and fainting is a very last resort. It’s also actually very unusual for a fear response in this way to result in a scream! Little shouts, or exclamations when shocked, yes, but rarely full-blown screams.

There are, of course, other horror ghost clichés which might make me cast off a story. I might roll my eyes at demons, possession, disembodied voices telling a person to ‘get out’, red eyes, and so on. I’m also very aware that the less impressive stories – knocking, rattles, the old standard things that go bump in the night, are often easily explainable outside of the paranormal.

Another thing I look out for is the escalating story. This is a horror movie format which is often picked up by ghost-story tellers. It starts with a simple thing that wakes a person in the night, then two or three things happen. With each event it worsens, the scares get bigger, the ghouls get more terrifying until suddenly people are forced to flee in the middle of the night leaving all their possessions behind (yes, I am looking at you, Amityville!). Whilst that is an extreme example, it’s amazing how many stories follow this pattern.

Another final thought on this, is that in my years of collecting these stories one thing that I don’t think is that obvious is the actual rarity of the full-blown apparition. That is not to say that I don’t believe it exists, in fact to the contrary there are a few accounts of them in this book, it’s just something I have noticed. More often there’s a bad feeling, accompanied by noises, or partial manifestations. It’s also rarer to see an apparition for a prolonged time as most of the sightings recounted here are very brief and fleeting. This ties in with the work of Wiseman who found an interesting pattern, that of the 30% of the people who claim some belief in ghosts, 15% claim this is due to having had an experience. Of this 15% only a third claim to have actually seen a fully-fledged figure. Of the other 66% of people claiming to have had a ghostly experience, at least half claimed to have experienced something more abstract such as orbs, mists, or shadows.

Due to this, the results of one of the parapsych studies I wrote and conducted was quite surprising. This was a photograph identification study, where people were given pictures of ghostly phenomenon and asked to state if they were real examples or not (they were actually all faked – by me!). This study showed that people were actually more likely to consider a full-apparition to be genuine than an orb etc. This study also showed that paranormal belief was not significantly related to interpreting ambiguous stimuli as paranormal – an interesting finding.[5] Evidence against the theory that paranormal experiences are simply misattributions of ambiguous stimuli, means that people are not, on the whole, mistaking random mists etc for ghosts. If this were the case, then it would be expected that more abstract photographs would have even identified than the more obvious figure pictures.

 

So what does this all mean? Honest answer, it means that the jury is still out! Currently paranormality and science are still at odds, but no longer the distinct rivals they once were. Whilst science cannot definitively explain the paranormal. It can’t disprove it either and until this changes that ever ongoing debate about the existence of ghost will continue.

 

---

[1] Jeannie Thomas. ‘The Usefulness of Ghost Stories.’ In Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore (2007)

[2] As first described in 1949

[3] Irwin, Harvey J. The psychology of paranormal belief: A researcher's handbook. Univ of Hertfordshire Press, 2009.

[4] Sasha Handley, Visions of an Unseen World: Ghost Beliefs and Ghost Stories in Eighteenth Century England. Routledge, 2015. (introduction).

[5] This study was never published, but I can produce copies on request. Emma Barrett, The Interpretation of Ambiguous Stimuli in Ghost Photography. (Plymouth University, 2014)

The Lost Villages of the South hams

Hallsands - The Village that was Reclaimed by the Sea

 

In the Western Daily Mercury, 1917, it was reported that the village of Hallsands had “ceased to be” (1). This came after a mass of storms and horrific weather conditions rendered the village uninhabitable. Almost the entirety of the village was built on the shore-front and was engulfed by water, battered by storms, and destroyed. By the end of winter 1917, only one house in the entire village was left habitable. One house – from a population of 189. A stark and life-changing natural disaster which left the citizens of Hallsands facing the awful truth that this was, “The end of [their] village” and that they would have to “go elsewhere” (2)

These days, there’s not much left of the village. A few modern houses and an old guesthouse are perched up on the cliffs above and now make up what is still known as the village of Hallsands. There is a small beach cove and the ruins of the chapel on the hill. The path down is broken and unwalkable so the National Trust has installed a viewing platform for people to look down on the two remaining houses and the ruins of the rest. (3)This was a natural disaster caused by unnatural means. This disaster was completely man made. The BBC Devon website gives the details: from the spring of 1897 - 1901, 660,000 tonnes of material were dredged from the shorelines around the village to provide silt for the new expansion on the naval dock in Plymouth(3). It took 18 years for this dredging to herald the end for Hallsands. What’s more, the villagers tried to warn the men responsible more than once. 

This was not just local news but was even reported nationally. In the Scotsman in 1903 an article appeared entitled “A Village Threatened.” (3) In this article a correspondent from Kingsbridge claimed that “for years, the contractor has been taking the beach shingles which rise up the terraces. […] he has also taken away a large amount of sand from the skerries which form the breakwater which protects the village”.

For much more in-depth info on what happened at Hallsands, look HERE

SOUTH HUISH - Quietly Abandoned

Another, much lesser known abandoned place in Devon is the village of South Huish. South Huish is a tiny village (and also a civil parish) out in the countryside near Kingsbridge. Not truly abandoned, there are now several homes on the land which was once the original South Huish Village surrounding the only true ruin which remains, the old church which was abandoned in the 1860s (6). The church itself is quite eerie, especially on a quiet day. The old graves lay mainly untended as the old ruins stand preserved by the Friends of Friendless Churches charity.

The reason for South Huish’s downfall is much less dramatic and is a tale of simple migration. By 1869, the church was considered no longer viable, as the population using it had grown so poor.
Nowadays, there are no housing or cottage ruins, but four homes still standing as well as a couple of farms thereabout. After the church was abandoned, making an end to the village, the congregation was all moved to the more viable Galmpton Village. The ruins of the church and graveyard are free access and worth a look. I photographed the stones and submitted the files to the “findagrave” website recently, so if you are a family historian with a family member in South Huish, Malborough or Gamlpton before the 1860s, those might be of use to you :)

1.   “Hallsands disaster”, Western Daily Mercury, 29^th January, 1917. P.3
2.    This quote was printed on the national trust’s information board at the scene.
3. Go here for a copy of the information boards supplied by the National Trust: http://www.slaptonline.org/library/
4. "Inside Out - Hallsands; The Village That Collapsed Into The Sea", Bbc.Co.Uk, 2002 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/southwest/series1/hallsands.shtml> [Accessed 20 January 2020].
5.   The Scotsman, 03 March 1903, p.6
6.    http://friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/south-huish/

Welcome (intro)

Hello and welcome to my blog. Take a seat, pull off your boots and take a load off, just for a moment.

Firstly let me introduce myself. My name is Emma, I'm a writer from Plymouth with a background as both a  history researcher (PhD) and a psychologist (Ma). I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and indie publishing for about ten years.
This blog is intended for my readers to learn a little more about me, my methods and my research for various novels. You can also expect some of my research - a bit of history, a bit of local research and some random adventures too.
Finally, this blog will be where I do my updates on what I'm working on, and what is due out soon, and any personal signings I am doing! 

Below is a list of my work:

Ella’s Memoirs 

The First Haverleigh Novel: A stand-alone novel which birthed the creation of a whole lore universe. When Ella rescued the injured wolf in the forest, she had no idea of the events that act would set in motion. In the eyes of a creature, she saw the glimmer of humanity, she acted on it and was rewarded with a curse which would leave her ageless and lonely throughout the centuries. As she sits, lonely and forgotten, she begins to write her memoirs. A journey written by the hand of a woman who has survived the odds. From the witch-hunts of sixteenth century Germany, to the brothels of nineteenth century Paris. A tale of werewolves and vampires, of hopes dashed and of a love which refuses to die, even as the centuries pass. 

The Black Marshes 

The Second Haverleigh Novel: Frances Hodge was just a child when she met the man in the marshes, a man who gave her a gift which would stay with her and shift the whole course of her life. No longer entirely human, she stumbles into the world of the drinkers and the changers, into a life where fear and hatred is the only motivation for survival. As the seasons change and a new century falls, Fran’s group come head to head with a powerful enemy, an enemy which has already killed her husband and some of her closest friends. For Fran, the changers are primal, unfettered and viscous, but then she meets William Craven and everything begins to change. This book is an indirect sequel to Ella’s Memoirs but can be read as stand alone. 

Donor

The Third Haverleigh Novel: The world of the Drinkers survives on Donors. Some of them are willing, others are not! Bree Morgan is one of those who was not. Kidnapped and used as an unwilling blood donor, Bree barely has time to process the ordeal when she finds herself rescued by the hands of another of their kind. Once safely home, Bree faces a choice: return to normality, or follow her rescuer into the darkness. It's time to learn the difference between "good drinkers" and "bad drinkers", but when both have to hunt, drink, and sometimes even kill to survive, those lines become blurred. With her head turned one way, and her heart the other, Bree takes the only path she can… but the darkness isn’t done with her yet, and neither are the drinkers who took her in the first place….This book is an indirect sequel to Ella’s Memoirs but can be read as stand alone.

The Blood of the Poppies

Jessie was just eight years old when she found the dead body of a woman in the woods. The corpse which she stumbled upon, decayed and forgotten, fast becoming the key to a life she'd never have lived otherwise. Through this, she learns to love Ethan, the strange boy who moves to the village with his aunt and no other family, and apparently no history. But Ethan has a secret, one he will defend to the very end, and one which could get them both killed.

The King’s Idiot 

Book One of the Rostalis Darkfire Chronicles: In a world of peace and prosperity, a golden king sits on the throne of a land once ravaged by war. His illegitimate daughter, Niamh, a solitary and quiet girl, often jeeringly called “the king’s idiot” by her peers, begins to find where the cracks form in the gilt of the golden keep. A pressure is building below a façade of gentle rule, and the king’s new ideas on religion are driving the Woldermen – the wild savages of the marshes – back into the kingdom. Led by desperation as their temples are torn down, their sacred forests are felled and their priestesses murdered, the Woldermen are gathering their forces. When Niamh is taken hostage by a group of Wolder, led by a familiar face from her past, she is faced with a choice. If she takes one path, it could lead to the destruction of her kingdom, but if she takes the other, a whole new world awaits her. Torn between two worlds, the princess must make her choice quickly. On one side is her father, a man beloved by his people and who raised a bastard child as though she were his true daughter, but on the other is the man she loves, a man with a cause, with a motive to bring it all down around them. Whichever path Niamh chooses, conflict is imminent and the golden reign is at risk.

The Queen's Dragon

Book Two of the Rostalis Darkfire Chronicles First there was treachery, and then there was war. For the inhabitants of Rostalis, surely a return to peace was due? As Queen, Niamh was faced with a whole new set of challenges now that the war was won. The rebuilding of the mage council, the purging of her father’s influences on the land and, most of all, the mending of the conflicts caused by her ascension to the throne. But peace is hard come by and once the door is open for war, it’s hard to push it closed again. Niamh will have to give everything she has if she is to survive and hold the throne, and this time - with her husband missing and her Wolder Army disbanded - she’ll have to do it alone.This epic fantasy is the follow on from The King's Idiot, and is set twelve years into the future. Niamh needs to stop this new war before it destroys everything, put the council back together with only child-mages left alive, and on top of it all, she needs to discover if her husband is alive or dead!

The Man Who Painted a Fairy

A gothic romance with a twist!
When Anna is orphaned in a terrible house fire, she finds herself thrust friendless and penniless into the world. From pampered child to dowdy governess, Anna has to fend for herself taking work where she can find it. Through this, she meets and falls in love with the strange and solitary painter, Nathaniel, who resides at the neighbouring Kellisham Hall. But who is Nathaniel? Who is he hiding from and why does he live such a solitary life, locked away in the dark behind firmly closed curtains? As circumstance once more pushes Anna out into the world, darker forces are at play and they won't stop at anything to get to Nathaniel...
...even if that means preying on the ones he loves.