The creepy factor builds deliciously, in the best kind of country-house mystery fashion, and you’re not sure exactly what horrors will emerge. Taylor takes his time letting us get to know Tom and better empathize with his frustrations. What a fun read! The Reaping is a slow burn. Tom finishes the portrait and hopes he is done with Woolvercombe House for good…only to find neither he, nor his family have escaped Miss Stewart clutches. Then there are the five mysterious nuns living on the property, who Tom discovers are not exactly models of piety. The ailing Miss Stewart, whose garish makeup fails to hide the sight and smells of her sour old age the sly manservant, Carl the too-efficient secretary, Mrs. Tom’s love of his craft is reenergized and, inexplicably, so his libido…but Tom gets a creepy vibe about the rest of Woolvercombe’s inhabitants. He seizes the chance, and he and the shy Catherine warm to each other (“warm” is an understatement). Life is uninspiring until Tom gets the lucrative opportunity of a lifetime: spend a week at Woolvercombe House painting the beautiful Catherine. His relationship with his globe hopping girlfriend, Ilona, is on the rocks. Releasing from Valancourt Books, This is Midnight: Stories by Bernard Taylor is available for pre-order now.Tom has all but given up his dreams of being an artist and settled for a steady career as shopkeeper to best support his young children. With tales that feature unpredictable and cruel twists, Taylor injects a healthy dose of black humor into the mix with startling results. Grant called Taylor’s Sweetheart, Sweetheart ‘The best ghost story I have ever read … a potential classic’. Taylor’s horrific short fiction is finally compiled in one volume, making this a must have for all horror fans. Author of The Godsend and Mother’s Boys (both adapted for the screen), as well as The Reaping, Taylor is still writing today, often under the pseudonym Jess Foley, as well as penning nonfiction titles under his own name. Thirteen stories, the complete short fiction of Bernard Taylor.īernard Taylor is one of the almost forgotten horror writers from the 1970’s and 1980’s. Another traveller has to share a room with a man who seems to know everything about a string of murders committed by husbands killing their wives in ‘Travelling Light’. A man’s obsession with serial killer John Reginald Christie is the catalyst for a strange and horrific trip to London in ‘Forget-Me-Not’. With ‘Samhain’, black magic is the path for a witch wanting to get rid of her loser husband. Taylor’s horrific short fiction is finally compiled in one volume, making this a must have for all horror fans.Ī man begins to feel ‘Out of Sorts’ while spending the night with his mistress during a full moon.

The reaping bernard taylor