Alice Thompson

Alice Thompson's new novel is a Gothic story of book collecting, mutilation and madness. Violet is obsessed with the books of fairy tales her husband acquires, but her growing delusions see her confined in an asylum. As she recovers and is realead a terrifying series of events is unleashed.

The Book Collector

Helen Valentine

Chronicle Books resuscitates the long-lost art of charm with this classic compendium of hints, tips, and tricks guaranteed to boost anyones charm quotient. First published in 1938, this delightful handbook is overflowing with timeless advice to guide readers through a maze of social interactions with wit and grace. More than an etiquette or personal grooming book, Better than Beauty tackles complicated social situations with delicacy: How to be kind to atrocious people How to avoid the gossip mill How many drinks is too many drinks How to deflect unwanted advances from married men How much to tip And much, much more With good humor, authors Helen Valentine and Alice Thompson offer straightforward charm counsel, making it a cinch to win the admiration of friends, family, and suitors. Featuring original artwork, Better than Beauty proves that charm never, ever goes out of style.

A Guide to Charm

Better than Beauty

NO HAY NADA MÁS TERRORÍFICO QUE UN CUENTO DE HADAS. «Tan inquietante, pavorosa y real como la peor de las pesadillas». IAN RANKIN «Un perturbador espectáculo gótico, rebosante de energía y genuinamente aterrador». STEPHEN KING En la Inglaterra eduardiana, Violet parece llevar una vida de ensueño: un marido caballeroso, un hijo adorable, una lujosa residencia... Pero la creciente obsesión por uno de los preciados libros que colecciona su esposo ;un misterioso volumen de cuentos de hadas guardado bajo llave; hará que su idílica existencia comience a tambalearse. Asediada por unas perturbadoras alucinaciones que amenazan su cordura, ingresa temporalmente en un sanatorio. Pero cuando, a su regreso, descubre que una bella y enigmática niñera ha ocupado su lugar, los horrores padecidos durante su internamiento no serán nada en comparación con los que su propio hogar le tiene reservados... Alimentada en su fondo por la siniestra leyenda de Barba Azul, Alice Thompson nos ofrece una novela oscura y macabra, una creación elegantemente diabólica que, a la vez que homenajea a Rebeca y a la Angela Carter más transgresora, no pierde de vista en ningún momento el verdadero propósito de la mejores historias de terror: que el escalofrío que nos sacude durante su lectura se prolongue más allá de la última página.

El coleccionista de libros

William Blake is a private detective. When he is asked by an eccentric scientist to investigate the where-abouts of his amnesiac missing wife, Louise, Will finds himself entangled in layers of deceptions and disappearances that lead him inexorably back to an unsolved mystery in his own past: the loss of his young daughter Emily. The case takes Will to brothels, nightclubs and amusement arcades in the Scottish seaside resort of Portobello. Identities become con-fused as his sexual obsession with a nightclub singer becomes entwined with sightings of Louise, his own torturous memories, and new visions of the lost Emily. The Existential Detective is a surreal, dreamlike story of loss, incest and what it means to remember.

The Existential Detective

When a strange woman appears on his doorstep near death, Dr. Noah Close nurses her back to life and eventually marries her, but a year later, her sudden disappearance launches the doctor on a quest to find her that leads him into her shadowy, uncertain pa

Pandora's Box

For disillusioned author Max Long, the offer of a writing-fellowship on the mysterious-sounding ‘Burnt Island’ is a godsend. Max is determined that, inspired by his tenure on this windswept outpost, he will produce every writer’s dream — the bestseller. And this time, he plans to subvert his usual genre and write a horror story.Â But upon arrival, Max’s fantasies of hermetic island life are overturned when he encounters a potential rival living in close proximity – the famously reclusive James Fairfax, author of the internationally-lauded novel, Lifeblood. Fairfax’s critical and financial success with Lifeblood, coupled with his refusal to court the limelight, has long been the talk of the literary circles. However, as the lives of the two men become intertwined, Max cannot marry the myth of the publicity-shy Fairfax with the apparently urbane and confident reality. He begins to suspect that Fairfax is not the true author of his exceptional debut. Moreover, Max cannot escape the disturbing knowledge that Fairfax’s wife has disappeared.Â Recently-divorced and struggling to keep a grip on his fragile mental state, the vulnerable Max finds himself sliding into Fairfax’s world. And he starts to witness alarming visions that take the form of the horror he is attempting to write. Who or what is the sinister, darting figure who appears between the trees of Fairfax’s garden at night? Who is the tiny, forlorn little girl who seems to need help? And what has happened to Fairfax’s missing wife? Â With an unnerving plotline in which we encounter doppelgängers, ghostly forms and machines masquerading as humans, Burnt Island is a masterwork of subtle terror. At times evoking The Wicker Man in its growing sense of paranoia and undercurrent of eroticism, Thompson’s evocative, compellingly-written story takes a grip on the reader as inexorable as that of Burnt Island on Max Long. An ironic satire on literary ambition, Thompson’s sixth novel soon draws the reader into something much darker.

Burnt Island

Set in the early nineteenth century, Pharos is a dazzling ghost story from award-winning author Alice Thompson. A young woman is washed up on the shores of Jacob's Rock, a remote lighthouse island off the coast of Scotland. She does not know who she is or how she got there. She has no memory. The keeper of the lighthouse and his assistant take her in and feed and clothe her. But this mysterious woman is not all that she seems, and neither is the remote and wind-swept island. Eerily reminiscent of Turn of the Screw and The Others, Pharos is a breathless tale of the supernatural.

A Ghost Story

Pharos

Influenced by the Marquis de Sade's work of the same name, an award-winning Scottish writer follows one Englishman's nearly hallucinatory obsession with an obscure woman depicted in a painting, who seems to come to life as identical twins. IP.

Justine

Award-winning writer Alice Thompson’s compelling new novel is a story of transformation; an exploration of the shifting borderlands between imagination and reality.It is 1936. Iris Tennant has applied, under a pseudonym, to become personal assistant to Lord Melfort, the Under-Secretary of War, at his estate in the Scottish Highlands. Her plan is to find out why her younger sister Daphne committed suicide there a year previously. As Iris gradually falls under the spell of Glen Almain, she starts to see the apparition of Daphne haunting its glades and begins to wonder about the manner of her death. Is there really a beast that inhabits the woods? Who is the mysterious falconer? What actually happened to Daphne, and is Iris destined for the same fate?A backdrop of impending war and the spectre of Nazi Germany loom over this strange, dark tale. What ensues is a battle between instinct and reason, fantasy and history.

Alice Thompson

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