A child sees things she’s sure don’t exist. The adults call it trauma. They’re both wrong.
On a remote Yorkshire headland known as Dreadnought, seven-year-old Cass Delaval begins to glimpse figures and fragments tied to a past that refuses to stay buried.
As the world edges toward conflict, Cass is drawn into a family mystery stretching back to the Second World War: a missing boy, a hidden weapon, and a family secret.
Because whatever has lain dormant on Dreadnought goes deep into our past … and it isn’t finished with us yet.
Dreadnought is a story of loyalty and hope, where the courage of one small girl may be our last defence.
What if your best friend wanted your new life too?
Sammy Jenkins only comes to Brambleton because her best friend Chloe needs a favour. Again.
One shift serving canapés at a North Devon country mansion. Then it’s back to mounting bills and a life that’s going nowhere. Except the owner of the estate sees something in her.
Suddenly, Sammy is being offered a full-time job as housekeeper, complete with a cottage of her own. It’s more than she ever dreamed of, even if Chloe thinks it should all have been hers.
But settling into life at Brambleton Hall isn’t easy. Magnus, the butler, demands perfection. And Nate, the handsome, reserved gardener, gives nothing away. Somehow, though, Sammy is making it work. She has a home that’s just for her, a job she’s good at and Nate might not be quite as distant as he first seemed.
Then Chloe comes to stay.
And while Sammy understands the rules that keep Brambleton Hall running smoothly, Chloe doesn’t see why any should apply to her…
Hi! I’m Debbie. Once upon a time, I was a perfectly respectable London professional – a chartered accountant with a law degree, a Blackberry (remember those?), and too many sensible shoes. Then common sense prevailed, romance called, and I swapped London’s Zone One for Devon’s Zero Signal. I still wonder if leaving the City was brave or simply plot research taken to a reckless extreme.
Currently my “head office” is a polytunnel: no Wi-Fi, but plenty of fresh air and flourishing tomatoes. The plants photosynthesise while I draft havoc; technically off-grid, creatively on fire.
Meanwhile, the dogs run the editorial obstruction department. They possess zero publishing experience yet veto scenes with a single raised paw. Oh, and their union insists on edible compensation only.
These days, I know the real price of life’s essentials: a good haircut, a great friend, and the joy of a proper night’s sleep. I write love stories for grown-ups – warm, witty, stuffed with second chances and the kind of relationships where affection and exasperation create irresistible chemistry – for better for worse.
Think of my indie “publishing house” as one woman, no award-strewn empire, no two-legged staff – just me, two obstinate dogs, and a biscuit budget.
I’ve tried not writing. It didn’t go very well. So I need readers. Not many, just the excellent sort who laugh in the right places. I hope you’ll be one of them.
A brutal assault nine months ago left eccentric portrait artist Micah with facial scars and PTSD. He’s struggled to leave his apartment ever since, and he can’t let anyone in. Then his only sanctuary is disrupted by signs of a haunting.
Between the 80s synth pop and motivation messages scrawled on his bathroom mirror, Micah finds himself more charmed than frightened by who he believes to be Cosmo, the deceased previous resident of his apartment. But when Cosmo’s ghostly visits suddenly stop, Micah is determined to lure him back.
Meanwhile, sculpture artist Cosmo – dramatic, unconventional, and very much alive – is mourning his old self. His boyfriend’s a serial cheater, he’s continually passed over for a promotion at work, and he’s lost contact with his best friend. To make matters worse, his apartment is being haunted by the ghost of a bespectacled man with an eye socket of scars. It’s his last straw, and seeking a new start, Cosmo moves out.
In a chance meeting, Cosmo and Micah’s paths cross again, and tentative sparks fly. But the phantoms of their pasts still linger. In order to find a future where they can both be happy together, Micah and Cosmo need to confront their trauma once and for all.
A queen without a throne, a sorcerer without magic, a usurper bent on genocide…
Emma thought she was just an ordinary woman. She had no idea that she’d been abducted by aliens to save her life; until they returned her memories. The Zargons watch, they study, they don’t interfere, until one of them did. One of them saved Emma’s life when they shouldn’t have, and now they want her to save thousands more.
Emma’s stepmother is the mightiest sorcerer Dunia has ever seen. She used her power to steal Emma’s birthright, and now she’s using it for genocide. Only Emma can supplant Queen Lila, but she can’t do it alone. Her husband, Tom, has a potential he never knew; a potential to wield magic. Together, they must travel across the galaxy, find Tom’s magic, and save the homeland she never knew existed, until now.
About the Author
Charlotte Goodwin is an Army Reservist of twenty years with just another twenty-two to go! She openly admits she is unable to ever leave through choice and will still be serving until they kick her out at sixty. Around the Army, Charlotte somehow manages to fit in being a mum to two young children, a never ending renovation project, adventures in the great outdoors and an addiction to writing.
Genre – horror > supernatural ● ISBN hardback – 978-1-78758-918-6 ● ISBN ebook – 978-1-78758-919-3 ● Pricing [USD] $26.95 (HB) / $4.99 (EB) ● Pricing [GBP] £20 (HB) / £4.95 (EB) ● Releases January 20 2026 ● Published by Flame Tree Press ● Distributed by Hachette UK / Simon & Schuster US
SYNOPSIS
Driving a logging truck through the Romanian mountains, smuggler Rosi and her crew come across a radio signal that hints at impending doom. As the world goes completely dark, their truck becomes a vessel sailing across a sea of nothingness.
But they’re not alone: transmissions trickle in through the radio from similar isolated islands across the country, from amateur radio hobbyists and police cars and customs facilities. Attempting to rescue survivors and find a way out, the group save more lives, but soon discover that something hungry lurks below, and it’s sending up agents – and transmissions – of its own.
Comparison Titles: Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess, The Boats of the Glen Carrig by William Hope Hodgson, Void 1680 AM by Ken Lowery, The Vast of Night (2019 film directed by Andrew Patterson)
ISBN: 9781835413784 Format: Paperback Pages: 320 Published: 27th Jan 2026
Description
Port Astor is a city of ghosts. Once home to the beautiful, brutal courts of the fae, forty years ago they vanished without explanation – and Port Astor decided to forget.
Brix and Bellefeather are paranormal investigators, working to keep Port Astor’s wraiths and spectres from consuming the city. Both have hauntings of their own: Belle shares her body with a demon, Belizial; Brix has trapped the soul of his dead fiancée in the world of the living, unwilling to let her go.
While investigating the glamorous and notoriously haunted Peony Hotel, Brix and Belle come across a young couple tangled up in one of the city’s most infamous tales. Jimmy Valentine, silver screen idol and one-time favorite of a fae queen, has returned to haunt the Peony. But Jimmy is no mere ghost, and Brix and Belle soon realize his return is more intimately tied to their own hauntings than they could ever have imagined.
The fae have not forgotten that Port Astor once belonged to them. And their Hollow Queen won’t give up her kingdom so easily.
My Review
Brix is dealing with losing his beloved Abby, Belle is dealing with her childhood trauma. They work together as investigators of the supernatural in a haunted city. One day they investigate a haunted hotel, and the next they’re dealing with the Hollow Queen, a powerful fae.
Brix discovers that a ghost has been called, a ghost so powerful that it’s drawing others to the hotel. He sets about rescuing the two young people who caused the problem, only to realise that the ghost, famed singer and actor, Jimmy Valentine, was once the amour of the Hollow Queen, and she’s never forgiven him for loving her.
Belle’s sister Dee comes to call, desperately looking for help. Her husband Clarence, a priest, has been behaving strangely: he’s cheating on her with a parishioner, he doesn’t go to church anymore, and he’s spending an awful lot of time in the old barn. When Dee takes herself back to the family farm, Belle, and her demon Beliziel, follow, because something is clearly not right.
It’s very not right. And the two cases are linked. Between them, Brix and Belle work on either end of the case, lay ghosts to rest, and banish the fae, while fighting their own internal wars. Belle and Beliziel have to find a way to live equally, while Brix has to find the courage to let Abby go. And they both have to rescue/protect the two young people, Virgil and Leonie, and Dee, from themselves, Clarence, and the Hollow Queen.
Wow, this was…
Overwhelming melancholy
Longing for a lost love
Demon sex
Ghost threesomes
Pyres and gallows
A bullet to the brain
Strangely enough, it ends with hope, and I can see this being the first in a series following Brix and Belle, as they mentor Virgil and Leonie, and Belle builds a new relationship with her sister, while they hunt down the rest of the doors, and work out why the fae retreated from Arcadia in the first place.
The story starts strong, and I was intrigued by the going’s on at the hotel. That strand was definitely the strongest of the novel, exploring Brix’s angst about losing Abby, and the strong connection of people to places. The young lovers, Virgil and Leonie, who carelessly summon the spirit of Jimmy Valentine, are bound up in each other. This is where the ghost threesomes come in. Yeah, that was weird, but fine I suppose. It makes sense in the plot.
Brix, with Virgil, and then Jimmy, unwind the bonds, discover the cause, and fight the Hollow Queen, in the confines of a hotel room that keeps disappearing. It’s beautifully described, and the four characters feel full, rounded, even the ghost.
There’s the echo of the Hollow Queen permeating the whole narrative, too, becoming solid when Jimmy leaves, helped by Brix and Virgil. The other haunting here is love and heartbreak. Jimmy was in love with everyone, and broke hearts, including his own every day, always seeking a home and never finding it. His love is so deep, he might even sate the Hollow Queen. And that’s a problem for her. Their complicated relationship drives the hauntings and the religious fervour, as the Hollow Queen hungers to devour everyone and everything, and Jimmy hungers for a place where he can stop running.
Belle’s strand was weaker, and there could have been more focus on her past with Clarence. Why does Clarence hate her? He’s a priest and he knows about Beliziel, but how? The reader knows Belle’s parents abused her – they were religious and delusional believing her to be possessed long before she actual met Beliziel, but she left home before Dee met Clarence. Did her parents tell him about their wicked, demonic daughter? Did Dee?
The relationship between Belle and Beliziel is complex, and it’s only after they accidentally kill Ada, Clarence’s mistress and the host to whatever is causing the blinding light in the barn, that there is a reckoning between them. Belle must face her pain, as must Beliziel, instead of holding it back and hurting each other. They also have sex a lot. I’m not sure why, other than as a bonding exercise? It wasn’t particularly explicit so I am not going to object.
I think if the author writes a sequel, focusing on Belle and Dee’s relationship will be an important strand, maybe answering some of the questions I have about their childhood and Clarence.
The setting is pseudo-1950s U.S. There’s cars and movies, industrialists and robber barons, a Gilded Age hotel past its prime, and Belle is clearly considered to be eccentric, someone out of time, but there’s an otherness to it. Some of the dialogue feels psuedo-working class English, not American. Arcadia could be anywhere, a floating place, unattached to any known map, and yet has a definite USian vibe.
Honestly, an enjoyable read that kept my attention and the way the two separate mysteries are brought together is clever. I found the ending a little abrupt, but I can see what they author was doing. I think it would make a good film. There’s a theatrical quality to the novel that would translate well.
It’s a bit gothic, with a dark undertone and terrifying highlights. Hardly anyone dies. There are no explosions.
Other than the lack of explosions (the hotel could definitely have blown up from the energy of fighting the Hollow Queen, surely? Or the barn?), I recommend this novel to lovers of gothic horror who wants to shake things up and read something lightly dark, and to the urban fantasy or paranormal romance lover looking for something slightly less romantic and slightly darker.
