Child of Winter lives up to its promise to be ten dark and twisted tales. Each tale is a twisty, knotted maze that will trap you, ensnare you and mesmerise you until you find your way to the story’s core. Each lead character nurses a dark and devastating secret, but faces an encounter or lifechanging event that will force into a cathartic journey into the depth of their past or into their own inner soul.
The Homecoming is a spine-tingling debut. Atmospheric and evocative, its gothic imagery transports you into the soul of an old woman haunted by regret, bitterness, and the long shadows cast by old sins. The labyrinthine twist at the end will send you reeling.
Tell Me is a thought-provoking reminder that everyone has a story. Including, and perhaps especially those society reviles or ignores, such as a malodorous old man who sits by the seaside. A chance encounter with a lonely stranger allows him at last to unburden himself of the dark secret that – perhaps – has led to his decrepitude.
There is only one way to describe The Eye of the Beholder, and that is brilliant. This one was my personal favourite. A delectably twisty moral yarn, it kicks off where The Picture of Dorian Gray stopped. A rookie journalist seeks to obtain a scoop on Will Harper, an enigmatic photographer known for his shots of women of goddesslike beauty. But are they all they seem? And how much do we really judge a brick by its cover?
Bricks and Mortar is a moving portrayal of the harrowing effects of war, and the hate, trauma and emotional scars left behind. Holocaust survivor Henryk returns to find his home commandeered by embittered widow Marta. Marta considers Henryk a foul abhorrence as the old prejudices remain. And tragedy strikes when they cannot agree about who the house should belong to.
The Stranger You Know is the haunting tale of an abandoned old woman terrified of receiving visitors. When she receives a persistent knock at the door, she will have to face up to the darkness she has witnessed before she answers it.
Child Of Winter is the supernatural thriller at its richest and darkest best. And most tragic. Angela and Simon, who lost their baby many years ago, spend the winter snowed in in a desolate cottage in the Scottish Highlands. Angela disappears after meeting a diminutive, wraithlike figure, childlike yet withered. In the last pages a labyrinthine secret is magnificently unwoven. I was gripped until the very last word.
Every Queen Deserves A King is a paranormal fantasy thriller that careens round tight bends like a Formula 1 driver. Then explodes at the end like a supernova. This is my second favourite. A student nurse, Hilary, with a dark past is obsessively pursued by an elderly and crippled patient, Charles Spencer, even though he has an absurdly overglamorous wife. Just what are the couple’s designs on her? Charles’ interest is a macabre, perverted enthralment that transcends the sexual or even psychopathic.
In You Were Always On My Mind, a warring couple, Paul and Becky, relive their first date. They take a walk together to rekindle the love that was once undying. But in the last page, the world is spun upside down like a fruit bat. Once again, everything is the opposite of what it seems.
Calaveritas (Little Skulls) is the darkest and most bloodcurdling of all the tales. And all but the hardest heart will break for Billy, the boy abandoned by his mother and left at the mercy of his brutal sexually abusive father. Billy, alone and desperate, falls in with the ‘cool’ gang at school and goes trick-and-treating. As an initiation test, Billy must smash the window of an elderly lady. But he gets more than he bargained for when he is given the most taboo and dangerous power of all, that of an avenging angel, or retributor.
Last, but by no means least, The Dead. It doesn’t sound like a jolly tale, and it’s not. But it’s gripping and compulsive. It starts off routine and hundrum. A wealthy man hires a beautiful prostitute.The Melissa who sells herself to him, is just a projection; an illusion; a fantasy. He seeks to remove the veil and see the woman behind the fantasy. Melissa’s mild-mannered client’s insatiable lusts go far beyond the sexual. I guess it’s Psycho meets Pretty Woman.
T.R. Hitchman is to be warmly congratulated on her addictive storytelling that reveals her closed-up and enigmatic characters to bare their innermost souls.
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