Fourteen tales of fantasy and horror written as a homage to the traditions of both genres.

"Toby recoiled and I knew it was because of the smell. Death had its own aroma. A mixture of faeces, blood and what I can only describe as dust. It's the smell of a house locked up far too long from the sun, it's a dry smell, a smell of dark places and broken promises, and I knew it waited for everyone."

Fourteen tales where the veil of reality is thin, and dark things await us in the foreboding regions of those frail moments in time.

"There are no sights more beautiful than the highlands of Scotland in the winter. The landscape is desolate and alien to someone who grew up in the cities of the south. The white mountains roll on forever and if you are silent and still long enough sometimes a deer will come close enough for you to almost touch them."

Fourteen tales written to erode the barrier between the world we live in, and the mystery that awaits us beyond.

"The autumn was colder now than it was in my youth, and this wasn't the only sad realisation that time had gifted me. The aches and pains had moved in by stealth and slowly the person in the mirror became someone I did not recognise. Thankfully, time has not been as cruel to me as it was to my ancestors; I had my children and wrote my tales, all my stories - except one."

Fourteen tales: The railway station and its strange otherworldly arrival, the monster from the oceans deeps, the Men in Black, the lonely girls, the bus journey, the house that blinks in and out of existence, and the mythical Crystal Heart.

Fourteen tales to delight and haunt.