Flappers & Fiction

On a gray November day along Harpswell Neck, a singular procession emerges from the hemlocks. Six fish-wives bear the rough coffin of Hannah Stover, for the men of the village have refused to touch it. But at the churchyard gate, a sullen wall of fishermen waits to block their path. They claim the dead woman was a witch who belongs in the rocky “Devil’s Den,” not consecrated ground. As the mob’s fury rises, Mercy Stover must find the courage to defy her neighbors or watch her stepmother’s remains desecrated by the very people she once nursed.

When Roger and Rachel Mowbray arrive at the desolate cliffs of Slyne Head for their honeymoon, they expect only wild scenery and the company of their eccentric friend, Dr. Gramery. But the Doctor’s fascination with hypnotism is more than a parlor trick; it is the instrument of a cold, decades-old vengeance against Roger’s family. As the tide rises in a remote sea-cave, Roger faces a terrifying test of the senses. Can he break the spell and see the truth before the water claims his wife, or will an old enemy’s power force him to abandon her to the waves?

Giles Hernshaw was a man of rough edges and dark reputation, feared along the Virginia coast as a wrecker. His only softness was reserved for his infant daughter, though he held a bitter grudge against the memory of Colonel Hartwell, whose grave he once desecrated. When Hernshaw’s scheme to cut a channel through the sandbar goes wrong, the ocean rushes in to claim the land. As the waters rise and his daughter’s cradle drifts away, the very monument he cursed becomes the only hope for her survival.

You have to admire a suitor brave enough to walk through a place called “Death’s Mysterious Alley.” Young Whey Goon does exactly that for the mysterious Poh Yuin Ko, passing polite monsters with human faces to reach her jade palace. He finds a love that defies nature, but their happiness rests on a fragile secret. When a single sip of wine at a banquet breaks an ancient vow, his beautiful bride reveals a terrifying form that explains why the Great Yellow River still floods today.

Poor Makar wants only enough brick tea and vodka to forget his frozen, miserable existence in the remote Yakut forests. But when a Christmas Eve hunt ends in the snowdrifts, he wakes to face an authority far more daunting than the local police. Standing before the Great Toyon, with massive scales ready to weigh his sins against his wretched toil, the lifelong mute must suddenly find the voice to defend his soul. It is a judgment that asks a trembling question: does earthly suffering count as heavenly virtue?