Queer Horror Night: Natasha Pulley & Dorian Ravenscroft

As Samhain creeps closer, join us to celebrate a night of queer horror with Dorian Ravenscroft and Natasha Pulley!

It's no secret that we love spooky season, and there's nothing more fitting than two atmospheric ghost stories to prepare you for a Hallowe'en weekend. Horror and gothic fiction is filled with transgression, with hidden things coming to the surface, to be exorcised, indulged in, held up to the (candle)light - it's no wonder queers love horror when the genre traces its beginnings to the now-rediscovered lesbian vampire novel Carmilla.

We look forward to spending this special evening in the company of writer Natasha Pulley, who has published in various genres, often historical, often magical, often gothic, and is now presenting a folk horror story with The Salt King, and debut author Dorian Ravenscroft!

The books:

The White North Has Thy Bones

Eight years ago, HMS Melpomene met disaster on her search for the missing Franklin polar expedition. A tiny handful of survivors returned home against all odds; now, one of them is to be hanged for the murder of his wife and brother, a crime he claims no memory of committing. Among the spectators is ambitious London newsman, Harry Lambert, obsessed by the Melpomene story and the question of what could drive a hero of the Arctic to such an end.

His search for answers takes him to the door of Sidney Blakely, the survivors’ charismatic leader turned celebrated Spiritualist medium – a power granted to him, he says, in the thin-veiled North. Living with him is Lieutenant Taylor who claims a darker ‘gift’: to be a vessel for possession by spirits of the dead. Harry doesn’t believe a word of it.

But as the true, bloody story behind Melpomene’s end unfolds, he begins to wonder. Blakely’s revelations of desperate mutiny and a hierarchy out of its depth are shocking enough. But between these lines are whispers of unquiet ghosts, and more than ordinarily savage beasts.

In the gaps between what is said and unsaid, what can be believed is as shifting and unstable as the ice itself. Harry knows what Melpomene’s crew left in the Arctic. But what did they bring back?

The Salt King

Avelyn Brocken is a Jesuit at the Vatican. Originally from the salt mining town of Hreodwater in East Anglia, his only ambition is never to go back. But when rumours of miracles being performed there are followed by a bizarre video showing that someone trying to leave then enclave has been turn to salt, the Vatican foreign ministry summons him.

The isolated Hreodwater salt mine has its own culture, its own language, and its own faith - the worship of the Salt King, the sleeping god of the mine. Any investigation into their miracles requires someone who understands all three. Avelyn must go.

Returning to Hreodwater, with its unique salt light, and ability to destroy anything electronic within minutes, is personally challenging for Avelyn, who escaped the cult - and the Salt King - as a child. But eruptions of salt are happening all over the world. People are being turned into salt statues without warning, and their frequency is increasing.

If these are miracles, the church must do something. And it they are not - if the ancient, and frightening, Salt King is returning - then Avelyn may be the only one who has a chance of stopping it...

The authors:

Dorian Ravenscroft (they/he) is a queer Jewish author currently based in London and studying law. Their stories are often deeply rooted in their working-class upbringing, married with their experiences as a queer person growing up in the Northwest of England. Dorian likes to write complicated, nuanced tales featuring complicated, nuanced LGBTQ characters, and has always found their inspiration in horror and history.

Natasha Pulley (she/her) is the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, The Bedlam Stacks, and quite a lot more. An international bestseller, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award, the Locus Awards, and remained on the Sunday Times bestseller list for much of summer 2016. The Bedlam Stacks was longlisted for the Walter Scott Award and shortlisted for the Encore Award.