Supernatural tales of terror in the Gothic tradition. The terror that pervades these stories lurks and smoulders. Observe ordinary people’s lives through a sinister lens. Each story establishes a disquieting tone. Horror is generally subtle, implied, yet no less disturbing. Tales unfold as Greek tragedies, where characters stumble through their lives, ignoring warnings against hubris and courting disaster.

Rather than graveyards and haunted houses, the stories are set in suburban landscapes where horror stalks, torments and haunts its victims causing menace and despair. Evil smoulders, deludes and weaves a stench of confusion and doubt, where the characters are forced to question their reality,

The characters are often the middle classes trapped by a sense of dislocation. They are often difficult to warm to. They are not evil, but their moral conduct is often ambivalent. Redemption is forced on them when horror manifests.

The stories have allegorical elements, are infused with dark humour and evoke psychological drama, which is underwritten by social comment, rather than relying in graphic violence. The horror enhances the harsh qualities that imbue our lives and society. The supernatural and eerie are not simply props used for theatrical effect. Like Guy de Maupassant’s fiction, the stories sometimes take a sardonic view of humanity, and social rot is a key theme.