When escaping to Gloucestershire to hide from a rapidly-racking-up series of gambling debts, there’s enough skeletons in the closet. All you’d need is an encounter with a ghost to…well…walk head-first into Tracy Wray’s compelling new novel!
‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ takes one unfortunate gambling addict, throws him into an eerie Gloucestershire home and into co-habitation with the ghost of a dead murder victim. And to top it all off, the author is a real-life ghost hunter who lives in a converted asylum.
Synopsis:
During the winter of 1923 Marcus Reid is forced to flee London and his gambling debts for the apparent safety of rural Gloucestershire. There, hidden in Mandrake Castle, he sets about attempting to catalogue the library of his father’s childhood friend, Edward De Rooke, the Earl of Rookeham.
Mandrake Castle is a strange and fantastical place, steeped in history and folklore, a place were the fabric of reality is stretched thin. The ghost of Juliet, a beautiful and tragic murder victim, haunts the halls and, much to his dismay, Marcus finds that he has caught her attention. Trapped in the castle by heavy snow, and torn between terror and fascination, he reluctantly embarks on a quest to uncover the truth about her untimely death.
“Believe me – I didn’t just pull this story from thin air. Everything is inspired by my actual work as a ghost hunter,” explains Wray. “In fact, I’m so engrossed in the spirit world that I chose to live in a converted Victorian lunatic asylum where strange goings-on happen every day. It’s safe to say – I know how to create ghost fiction better than anyone!”
Continuing, “Initial feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and, as I keep doing my real-life ghost investigations, more book ideas will undoubtedly present themselves to me. Just be careful where you tread, as a ghost could very well be following you.”
As Wray mentioned, reviews have been nothing but five-star. For example, I. Tattersall comments, “Really enjoyed this book. A gentle pace that I could follow, eerie, yet with a good bit of humour it flows nicely along and is an insight into the idle rich, or would-be rich, of days long gone.”
T. Robinson adds, “This is a very enjoyable book to read. . There is a good mixture of humour and eerieness and the storyline flows along nicely, it is not difficult to imagine yourself actually being there idling the days away trying to solve the mystery of Juliet’s death whilst trying to earn the money to pay off your gambling debts. I look forward to more from this author.”
‘In The Bleak Midwinter’ is available now: http://amzn.to/1rxbHR3v.
About the Author:
Tracy Wray is a writer and ghost hunter who lives in a converted Victorian lunatic asylum on Dartmoor, in the United Kingdom. She spent several years working at the British Museum in London, and has a BA degree in Archaeology. She now divides her time between writing and hunting for ghosts with the Visions Paranormal research group. This is her first novel.