PUBLICATION DAY! I am delighted to announce that Gothic Precarity: Fear and Anxiety in Twenty-First-Century Fiction is published today! Writing this book has been a journey into the shadows—into the ways fear and uncertainty shape our culture, our literature, and our sense of

Today on the podcast I chat to the wonderful @AlexHayBooks about food and fiction as we discuss his latest book #thequeenoffives

Thanks to everyone who came to my talk on Friday @wantagelitfest superbly chaired by @NicolaCornick. An apt discussion for Halloween given the terrifying events in The Cure! Thanks also to the festival team for making me so welcome & to @WantageBookshop for supplying the books.

My new bedtime book, as recommended by @sarah_hilary MISSING PERSON: ALICE by @SimonMasonbooks Been saving this since @TheakstonsCrime 😊

https://t.co/X0KVII1GAt

Love all things gothic? Join me in Whitby next week, for the inaugural Whitby Lit Fest! There, @lucindahawksley & I will be discussing Estella Havisham, Great Expectations, Charles Dickens and the gothic. https://t.co/CERIb4dNpX

Autumn shadows, Lincoln.

There's some bits from me in the latest @DWMtweets! An interview with Carole Ann Ford, Katy Manning + Rob Craine The inside scoop on this year’s Interstellar Song Contest surprise hit DUGGA DOO! Black Archive Quiz - an extra chapter from my Official Doctor Who Quiz Book! ❓

Samhain, the thinning of the veil between the living and the spirit world. The beginning of the darker half of the year. The light this morning was lovely shortly after sunrise here in Glastonbury. #samhain

Tonight’s film - Nic Roeg’s masterpiece DON’T LOOK NOW (1973) - in preparation for attending Venice Noir… #daphnedumaurier #nicroeg #dontlooknow #Venice #VeniceNoir https://t.co/kaBNKX6pVX

This week saw my last literary interview of the year, chatting to the wonderful @essiefox about her dark, lyrical novel DANGEROUS. Talking to a work colleague yesterday, it came to me with complete clarity that literary interviewing is my favourite activity (who knew?!). My

Happy Samhain from me and the girls… and our familiars. I’ll be taking the broom for a spin later

My heart is like a singing bird Christina Rossetti My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a purple sea; My heart is gladder than

✨🖤✨“Like the sharpest surgeon’s scalpel dipped in hemlock, Estella’s Fury is unflinchingly sharp and devious, guaranteed to leave its mark on you….”✨🖤✨ I’m honestly blown away by the reviews coming in for Estella’s Fury - like this one from the amazing @aresbiblio

DANGEROUS by @essiefox With thanks to The Bookcase Lowdham, yesterday evening I had the delight of chatting to Essie about her latest wonderful novel. DANGEROUS tells the story of Byron’s time in Venice; a dark and decadent Gothic tale of mystery, murder and vampires. The

So sad to hear about the wonderful #PrunellaScales Obviously she was superb as Sybil in Fawlty Towers, but also marvellous in so much else, especially as Mapp in the peerless Mapp & Lucia (C4). Here she is in her breakout role as Vicky in film Hobson’s Choice. Poised & beautiful

Darkness falls on Lincoln’s windmill.

21 years ago today 'The Birnam Wood' aired on TV. https://t.co/y17PvaJhiU

When You Are Old BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved