#Horror – Bookmarks and Stages by Lou

Blurb

Thass bad. Somethin’ dreadful always happens when the chil’un be abroad.

The Wayland Woods in Norfolk – an ancient place where sound and silence, truth and myth, and life and death intertwine.

Some say that the babes of the woods still walk the Earth – wandering through the trees, forever lost, holding hands and searching for help. To see them is a terrible omen. As daylight falls, you may hear the wailing – is it the babes, or just the wind in the trees? What could it mean to see the babes, feel their presence, and be lured deeper into the woods? They look so real. They seem so helpless and desperate.

Five tales tell of five lives touched over five centuries by the so-called babes in the wood. If they beckon, will you follow?

ghost story, Wayland Woods, myths and legends, ghosts, historical fiction, Norfolk legends

Review

5 tales in time for a spooky Halloween. 5 spine-tingling tales to creep you out. The atmosphere curls around you when reading the stories that take readers back in time. Time mysteriously disappears as though under a spell from when the first page is turned!

There’s a war horse, kings, churches and then there is the mysterious Mary to discover in the 1600’s. Fast forward and travel to the 1800’s for the next story, where the landscape is beautiful along the coastline and the Thames is also busy with barges. There’s and artist, but all is not what it seems. Still in the 1800’s there’s a Vicar and his wife and all seems very grand with a lord and lady, a great big house and a churchyard with a graveyard, with something mysterious.
Fast forward to the next tale set in the 1900’s with a bit of a war time story with an unexpected difference…
Keep moving on to discover Adrian and what he really thinks of Christmas and Pantomimes and what happens next…

There are a lot of mysterious, creepy goings on to see if you dare to follow these Wayland Babes in to their woods through the ages. I dared and was impressed by the sinister, atmospheric nature and calibre of writing to get it just right.

Each story is preceded by a poem that also sets the scene and gets you in the mood for what’s to come. There’s an Afterword about Norfolk Folktales and Pantomimes that makes interesting reading and further puts them into context.

Today on day 1 of this blog tour, I present an extract from The Farmhouse by L.B. Stimpson. Thanks to the author for providing the extract and Zooloo Blogtours for inviting me onto this.
Follow onto the Blurb and Extract and take a peek at a bit of this interesting, evocative, atmospheric book, that may well have your spines tingling, to see who lives in a house like this – an ageing, spooky farmhouse that just may put you in the mood early for Halloween!

Blurb

The house, for all of its solitude, seemed incredibly noisy

The Farmhouse, having stood against time and history for nearly 160 years in the Virginia countryside, was forgotten and abandoned until Kyle and Jenny Dowling moved in during the summer of 1972.

The Dowlings, married just a year, were struggling to repair their broken marriage. It was to be the perfect place, away from it all, to heal their relationship. Jenny would write and Kyle would tend to minor renovations. The rent was cheap.

The realtor warned them, however, against staying beyond the final days of fall.

Extract

Late Spring 1972

Jenny Dowling bit her lower lip in a failed attempt to keep her opinion to herself. She had promised her husband she would keep an open mind, but she didn’t expect the house to be so dilapidated. She swallowed her doubt and concern as they traveled down the gravel road, it was so worn and lonely and if she had to admit, the surrounding fields appeared frozen in time and she and Kyle were emerging through a portal, far from modern society, disturbing the past. Haunted. Yes, haunted was the perfect description. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the past, when wagons rolled and seclusion was necessary for survival at times.

“Oh, Kyle, you can’t be serious,” she finally blurted out as her eyes wandered along the overgrown driveway beyond the padlocked cattle guard gate which appeared to be holding in the decay spilling forth from the broken windows lining the front of the house. Empty, hollow eyes. Oh, he can’t be serious, but yet, he was.

Kyle reached over and grasped his wife’s hand. “Look, I know it doesn’t, well it might not be the secluded getaway you said you wanted, but it has some charm and it’s cheap and near enough to the city if I need to get back to the university, but I doubt that anyone will be calling. Besides, it has electricity and the realtor said she would cut us a break on the rent if we fixed up a few things.”

Jenny pulled her hand away and cranked open the window. The air was still. It was as though it was holding its breath lest a breeze break through the last shards of broken windows protecting the house against the elements. The house, this house, was exactly what Kyle had always wanted. Of course he would have chosen such a place–lonely and secluded.