A Trick of the Shadow by R. Ostermeier

R. Ostermeier, A Trick of the Shadow, French Flaps 210 pp.

R. Ostermeier lives and works on the peninsula. This first collection of strange tales draws predominantly on the region’s folklore and history, yet also includes first-hand accounts of contemporary disquiet.

A Trick of the Shadow contains the extraordinarily unnerving ‘Object’ and the disturbing, Arthur Machen-inspired ‘A Tantony Pig’, as well as the novella ‘Bird-hags’, which in all truth might not be for you.

“A Trick of the Shadow […] is a set of disconcerting and bleak stories, all set on the mysterious ‘peninsula’. These are compelling and disquieting tales, with an eerie surrealism running through. ‘A Tantony Pig’ explicitly evokes [Arthur] Machen, though all play on those themes he returned to again and again throughout his life […] of the dark glamour of weird rites, and the corruption of innocence […] the story builds to a moment of Machenesque dread and ecstasy.” – Timothy J. Jarvis, Faunus: Journal of the Friends of Arthur Machen