books
The Apollyon family’s seaside public house is steeped in secrets and magic, and attracts all manner of strange and lovely people. They’re usually ghosts, or selkies, or unwitting witches, or unhappy empaths, but they’re all stymied by love and loss.
Preternatural abilities are no match for human nature. Drown (deliciously) in this moody, Gothic romantic cycle with haunting undertones of folklore and magic. Excellent for fans of TJ Alexander, KJ Charles, or Johanna van Veen... who maybe wished Merchant Ivory films were a little darker.
In timeline order:
The Kraken and The Canary (Book 1) is focused on seer and landlord Paul Apollyon, eventual father figure of the found family who finds its home in The Shuck. But when Paul is young and still tapped into his premonitions, things are far more boring. Then a dashing stranger bursts into his taproom and asks to hide in the cellar. Paul can't say no; he even has a blush-inducing vision about the devilish newcomer. It all draws him into a plot to get two women out of Cromer so they can, more or less, marry. Here's the start of his own love story, although Alastair Gow is anything but straightforward.
Of Flint and Fortune (Book 2) – coming Aug 26 2025
13 months of idyll have transpired since reformed petty criminal Alastair Gow moved in with Paul Apollyon. When de facto marital bliss gives way to preternatural weirdness, unflappable Paul is unwilling to let Alastair face his past alone.
First, a regular customer delivers words of caution from a ghost. Second, Paul has a spate of ominous visions. Third, the new maid finds a dead crow hanging from the pub’s front door.
As though that’s not enough to be dealing with, a former colleague of Alastair’s arrives without warning, maintaining Alastair owes him. As he and Paul find themselves forced into an absurd search for lost smugglers’ loot, proper vulnerability proves more daunting than prospective peril. But Alastair doesn’t expire from telling the truth, and Paul is as steadfast as ever.
Then, another poor corvid serves as a sinister message... and the man who leaves it will stop at nothing to have Alastair for himself.
Of Valentines and Visions (Book 3) – coming Nov 2025
The second son of a wealthy family, Bertie Calder is used to getting both everything and nothing he wants. His upbringing meant reserve and repression alongside stability. As long as he was discreet, he was able to get up to all the mischief he fancied, including dalliances with Alastair Gow—who is, at present, vexingly enamored with Cromer landlord Paul Apollyon.
Will Lucas is Bertie’s opposite, at least when it comes to their social standings. Brought up by a mad butcher, he came of age in criminal circles where survival meant denying all finer feelings. By chance, Bertie befriended him when they were boys and Lucas has spitefully nursed a tendre ever since—even as Bertie manipulated him into a pointless chase for lost gold.
Too bad Bertie is determined to have Alastair, and has again coerced Lucas into helping him achieve a mad goal.
Yet Bertie's deeply held secrets pose more of a threat than any hired muscle ever could. If Lucas wants to discover whether his tendre will become something more, he'll have to collude with Alastair to protect Paul from Bertie’s own demons…
In Like Silk Breathing (Book 4), aura-sensing, self-medicating empath Tom Apollyon comes to work at his uncle's pub in Cromer. While on a late-night walk with an ominous intent, he meets the urbane selkie Theo Harper. But, because what else would be the case when you meet an intriguing fellow, Theo is involved with Tom's ex, Cambridge toff David Mills.
Needless to say, Tom and David have a past. They don't get along well. When Theo's skin goes missing—likely due to David’s pettiness—Tom thinks he can find it himself and secure their future, David be damned.
He refuses to end up like his uncle, Paul, who skulks about pining for his lost love... a mysterious man called Alastair.
The Only Story (Book 5) sees David Mills reckoning with his stifling past and making amends for being a bit awful to everybody. One day, he crosses paths with pickpocket and adept seer Lennie Campling, who is trying to escape the influence of their bigoted stepfather. Or, more accurately, Lennie steals David's wallet only to give it back. Then things take an even more chaotic turn when David knocks out Lennie's stepbrother with a wee jolt of magic.
With no idea where to go for answers or safe haven, Lennie and David flee to The Shuck. There, David discovers it's unnervingly natural to slip into a life of witchery... and Lennie finds both a toff-ish lover and the accepting family they've never had.
Unfair Winds (Book 6) is the one where everyone seems to be adjusting to ideas of love and loss, and a newly (re)haunted Shuck. Paul can't see or sense the ghost of his dead husband, but he's the only person who absolutely cannot. Meanwhile, David plots a supposedly noble murder with the help of said ghost; Tom and Theo grapple with new conflicts in their own relationship that have nothing to do with specters; Lennie wants to know what's being kept from them and why.
In theory, a haunting may be the tamest of problems anybody faces.
Besides, Alastair really is just trying to help everybody, but if only love and being loved came as easily as magic seems to.
