My Stories
No Crime in That
A free short story, set during the witchcraft trials of the Seventeenth Century. Yours for FREE if you click HERE
Shards of Shattered Darkness
An anthology of 18 short horror stories, ranging from ghost stories to urban horror, from folk horror to the Cthulhu Mythos. The ideal introduction to my writing – including my fictional location of Darkisle. You can hear a reading of one of the stories – Hobb’s Top – for FREE if you click HERE.
Available NOW as paperback or (at permanently low price!) on Kindle… and it’s FREE if you have Kindle Unlimited! Just click HERE.
The Glennison Darkisle Cases Series
“What an exceptional series this is…” (Rose Auburn Reviews)
The Gathering of Shadows
The first Darkisle novel. Private Detective Jack Glennison’s first Darkisle case sees a mundane search for a missing person lead him into a world of ancient magic and unearthly terror… a world that is at once both utterly alien and horribly familiar….
“As Glennison delves deeper into what appears to be a straightforward missing person case, he uncovers an ever-darker plot that spirals into the realms of Lovecraftian horror. Devotees of HP Lovecraft will spot unmissable nods to the Cthulhu Mythos, as seen through the eyes of a man who doesn’t yet know what he is up against.” (T. Finley)
Available NOW as paperback or (at permanently low price!) on Kindle… and it’s FREE if you have Kindle Unlimited! Just click HERE.
Those Under The Hill
It’s eight months after the events in ‘The Gathering of Shadows’ and Jack Glennison is about to get pulled back to Darkisle, this time to investigate the disappearance of a young boy. If he thought he knew what the island could throw at him, he soon realises he was sadly mistaken. For Darkisle abounds in secrets. And some secrets are best left buried…
Available NOW as paperback or on Kindle… and it’s FREE if you have Kindle Unlimited! Just click HERE.
What Festers Within
It’s December 1922. But things are far from festive as Jack and Josine’s enemies close in on them. There’s nothing for it but to get out of Manchester and take on another Darkisle case – this time, at the behest of Jack’s friend Dr James Hardy. But things are not much safer on the island; civil unrest is breaking out as a mystery illness runs rife. Fear stalks the decrepit streets – and fear can be contagious…
Available NOW as paperback or on Kindle… and it’s FREE if you have Kindle Unlimited! Just click HERE.
Falls the Darkness
Jack’s latest case takes him to the far north of Darkisle to investigate a disappearance from a unique scientific expedition. Soon he must use all his skill and experience to untangle the truth from a web of jealousy and lies. And on top of that there is something going on among the locals….
Available NOW as paperback or on Kindle… and it’s FREE if you have Kindle Unlimited! Just click HERE.
New to the genre?
Writing in the New England of the early 20th Century, HP Lovecraft managed to create a bleak, horrific universe that challenged the growing confidence of the era.
Lovecraft’s vision came to be called the Cthulhu Mythos, named after the terrifying alien god that he created in his stories (an image of which you can see at the top of this page).
Lovecraft’s hopeless, pitiless universe has been expanded upon, adorned and embellished by many subsequent authors. I hope I will prove to be a worthy addition to that list.
About Darkisle
Darkisle is my fictional Irish Sea island, just off the coast of Great Britain. Nominally part of England, Darkisle has it’s own hidden history dating back far beyond when humans first stood on it shores.
Darkisle is an outlier. A fragment of an unspeakable world from the depths of unknown aeons. A place touched by terrible cosmic magic. A land where the locals keep their doors barred at night and shun strangers.
But the world is changing, and intrepid outsiders want to uncover the island’s secrets. Are you one of them?
About my fiction
Haunted by an event he has made himself forget. Scarred by the Great War. A failed scholar, a frustrated policeman, a discharged soldier… and now a Private Detective in 1920s Manchester. Meet Jack Glennison, through whose eyes you will witness the events that unfurl on Darkisle. The first two books in the Glennison Darkisle Cases series are out now.
A lot of my stories will be set in the 1920s – the ‘Golden Age’ of the Cthulhu Mythos, in many ways. However, revisiting the past allows me to offer up a lens to the present. Just as Lovecraft’s fears found their way into his work, so too will my Darkisle cycle resonate with our all-too-real modern day concerns .
About Me
Hello! Here’s a photo of me, in my natural environment.
I was born in 1964 (I’ll let you do the maths). I have written for pleasure (and, very occasionally, for money) for most of my adult life. I discovered HP Lovecraft in my teenage years (when the Call of Cthulhu RPG proved rather too good a distraction from my Applied Physics degree…).
Now, after a career that has taken in defence research, business consultancy and university management, I’m finally doing what I always threatened to do: gather up all my ideas from over the decades and put them into novels to share with other people.
I very much hope you will enjoy my take on the Cthulhu Mythos.
Want to know more? Check out this interview from January 2021
Got some feedback? Want to be the first to hear news about my latest fiction? Just want to say hi? Then fill in the form below and leave me a message!.
Contact
And you can follow me on Twitter: @MarkNDrake1
Mark N Drake 