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STEVE MERRIFIELD
TALES OF SUPERNATURAL MYSTERY & HORROR
THE DARKWOOD MYSTERIES
Available from most good e-book retailers.
Emily Darkwood is already resisting Victorian society’s expectations of her as a woman of the upper classes, when she receives a strange and life-changing inheritance in the wake of her missing parents. A stone of amber that draws her into mysteries, supernatural, cosmic, and criminal. Armed with this guide stone, her wits, revolver, sword-stick umbrella, and faithful servant-companion, the young, streetwise, and scrappy, Jack Hobbs, she determines to challenge the mysteries and threats she encounters in her search to understand the power of the stone, its connection to her parents, and their fates. Yet dark forces conspire against her, and her drive for answers and her fight against the darkness of the world risks her friends, family, her fought for studies in medicine and surgery, and herself.
The Darkwood Mysteries is a non-linear episodic series of short-stories, novellas, and novels enjoyable as standalone tales of horror and adventure, or together as part of a deeper mystery.
1
The Thief of Faces
Why is Darkwood keeping vigil at her friend’s tomb? Darkwood hunts a serial killer with a gruesome signature mutilation. What does a murderer want his victim’s faces for?
(short story)
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2
The Posthumous Child
What secret haunts the country estate of Cecil House? Darkwood receives messages from the other side, whilst a family experiences a ghostly tormentor. What does a spirit child want to be known?
(short story)
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3
The Luminous Marks
Why have glowing marks been left at sites of petty thefts? Darkwood has deciphered them and searches for their maker in London’s fog shrouded night—only to find they have a terrifying source.
(short story)
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4
The Wrath of the Dragon
Who or what is causing terrible fires in the slums of London’s East End? Superstitious fears on the street claim the Chinese are to blame—but could there really be a dragon in London?
(novella)
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5
The Peacock Cabal
What drained a young man of his vitality and left him dead? Men who love men are dying as something takes advantage of the secrecy surrounding their hidden love. Darkwood’s investigation reveals a conspiracy and a sinister threat…
(short story)
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6
The Cult of the Scarab
How does a mummified body, missing from the British Museum, connect to Darkwood’s nightmare of beetles in a foreign red land? The answer is found at the end of a trail of bodies…
(short story)
7
The Hag on the Heath
Why is an acquaintance of Darkwood under supernatural attack? Darkwood, Hobbs, the victim’s gypsy kin—her father and his companions—embark on a hunt for a witch. But is all as it seems?
(short story)
8
The Rat King
Board members of a charity suffer tragic ends. Where others see unfortunate coincidence, Darkwood suspects murder most strange—death through the mischief of rats… Have rats turned upon us, or is someone or something behind the attacks?
(short story)
9
The Spindly-Snatcher
Why is a writer burning down bookshops? Darkwood and Hobbs investigate a creeping madness, but in doing so they find a terrible something stalking between fear and insanity. Have the hunters become the hunted?
(novella)
10
The Conspiracies of Shadow & Fire
Conspiracies in the past unfold in the present and pitch Darkwood and Hobbs into a desperate struggle. Who can they trust? As the Hellfire Club and agents of darkness manoeuvre Darkwood and her stone into their traps, will she be able to escape the ultimate evil?
(novel)
11
The Hound at the Door
Why are attendees of a séance being hunted by a phantom hound? Whatever the reason, the stalking ends in their disappearance. Darkwood investigates--by becoming an attendee herself...
(novella)
12
The Silence of the Veiled Lady
Professor Meredith and his wife supported Darkwood's entry into her surgical studies, but both are now tormented; he by a missing box and its mysterious contents, and she by a secret she was sworn to keep. Darkwood is determined to see justice done.
(novella)
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13
The Philanthropy of the Dead
The dead Montgomery Woods reawakens in his tomb. Returned to the living, why is he set on giving away his wealth? Why have five other men done the same? Darkwood and Hobbs have little time to discover the truth before a family is ruined.
(novella)
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14
The Ghosts of the Black Museum
Irene Reuben, friend of Darkwood and spiritualist medium, encounters spiritual tormentors at a museum of crime. Are they unknown victims of the Creeping Ghost Killer? Is the murder case not closed after all? Their demands and the truth put her at risk from a murderer among the living...
(novella)
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DARKWOOD AND HOBBS RETURN IN:
15
The City of the Drowning
Hobbs has been sent away from the Darkwood house without explanation. In the care of Inspector Duggan, he faces a life without Darkwood, but danger remains. Great sums of money are being left in the streets of London, creating rich from the poor. Who is doing it, and why? Duggan and Hobbs determine to find out.
Release date 2023
16
The Rise of the Dragon
Release date 2024
17
The Book of Lies
Release date 2024
18
The Slaves of the Underworld
Release date 2024
19
The Gathering of Shadow & Fire
Release date 2025
20
The Disaster Man
Release date 2025