Dark Reflections

STORIES INFLUENCED BY THE MASTERS OF DARK LITERATURE

What was the real story behind Jekyll and Hyde? How do you cheat the most notorious curse of all time? Why are people getting sick with a strange malady that makes them bleed to death, and how are they being brought back to life in a futuristic nightmare? What happens when the world's most famous vampire falls in love, or the world's greatest detective takes on his most dangerous foe? How will a deadly serial killer be caught, and how will a certain paranormal investigator deal with his most unusual case to date? These and many more questions will be answered in Dark Reflections, a collection of spine-tingling tales by award-winning and #1 bestselling author Paul Kane (the British Fantasy Award-Nominated Monsters, Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, Before, The Storm), which pay homage to the masters of dark fiction, including M.R. James, Charles Dickens, William Hope Hodgson, H.P. Lovecraft, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe. With an introduction by the legendary Kim Newman (Anno Dracula, An English Ghost Story) and cover by Greg Chapman, you'll find a lot to reflect on in here...

• In Hyding
• Signals
• Life Sentence
• Humbuggered
• The Greatest Mystery
• Dracula in Love
• Heartless
• Masques
• Paw People
• Thicker Than Water
• The Grey Room

"These are love stories - in the sense that they were written by someone in love with the material... someone who recognises the sparks in stories that make us want to read and re-read them."

From the Introduction by Kim Newman

"Paul Kane is a first-rate storyteller, never failing to marry his insights into the world and its anguish with the pleasures of phrases eloquently turned."

Clive Barker - Bestselling author of The Hellbound Heart, Abarat, Mr B. Gone & The Scarlet Gospels

"Paul Kane's lean, stripped-back prose is a tool that's very much fit for purpose. He knows how to make you want to avoid the shadows and the cracks in the pavement."

Mike Carey - Bestselling author of the Felix Castor series of novels and The Girl With All the Gifts, Fellside, The Boy on the Bridge and The Book of Koli as M.R. Carey

"A master of the delightfully dark and mysterious, Kane marries deft plotting with closely observed characters and storytelling heart."

Alison Littlewood - Bestselling author of Richard & Judy Book Club choice A Cold Season, Mistletoe and The Other Lives of Miss Emily White as A.J. Elwood

"Paul Kane is a name to watch. His work is disturbing and very creepy."

Tim Lebbon - New York Times bestselling author of The Cabin in the Woods, The Silence and The Last Storm

"His stories not only, at his best, put him neck and neck with Ramsey Campbell and Clive Barker, but also in the company of greats like Machen and MR James. You don't rest easily after reading a Paul Kane story, but strangely your eyes have been somewhat opened."

Stephen Volk - BAFTA winning screenwriter of Gothic, Ghostwatch, Afterlife, The Awakening and Midwinter of the Spirit; author of The Parts We Play, The Dark Masters Trilogy and Lies of Tenderness