C. L. Raven

Longlisted in the Exeter Novel Prize." Are you ready to end the world?" It's supposed to be the greatest Apocalypse the world has ever known. But the death of mankind isn't as headline-grabbing as who laundered their last load on Celebrity Dirty Washing. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse's offspring want to tear up the biblical rulebook with style, sexiness and smiley face achievement stickers. There's one problem with rebooting legends: nobody recognises them. Health and Safety forbade horses (and there's nowhere to park them), so they ride motorbikes. And budget cuts only allow one Travelodge room between them. Their arrival breaks four seals. And a streetlight. It's hardly the epic, end-of-the-world entrance they'd imagined. Less 'world-wide media coverage', more 'notice in the personal ads'. Death excelled at reaping, not reproduction, so there are five Horsemen: twins Morgan and Aeron are in charge but couldn't lead a conga line; Marsden would be the hero if slaughter wasn't his favourite hobby; Demi prefers destroying people's confidence to destroying crops; Mac's low self-esteem and pacifism hinders his pestilent plans. Fallen angel Drew fights to stop them. But as usual, love arrives to cock things up for everybody. And what better time to host an Apocalypse than Christmas, while mortals are distracted by the contents of Santa's sack. Instead of Jingle Bells, there'll be abject screams. Providing they stop getting drunk on sexually-named cocktails...

This anthology features eleven stories from nine talented authors that explore the dark side of romance. Largely supernatural and adult in places.

1649. The year Edinburgh burned. Scotland was cursed by witches and in 1649, the witch panic was at its peak. No-one was safe from the executioner's flames. Below the imposing behemoth of Edinburgh castle, nineteen year old Nessie Macleod is forced to watch her mother, Isabelle, burn to death for witchcraft. Her mother's crime stains her more than the ashes that scatter across the Esplanade. Shunned by Edinburgh's townsfolk, she's also hounded by the witch pricker, John Brodie. Brodie killed her mother and now he's coming for her. The daughter of a witch is always a witch. When old Annie Dickson is accused of cursing the flescher's pigs through witchcraft, she suffers for days at Brodie's hands before betraying three women and starting a witch hunt that sees one woman killed and another executed before the baying town. Nessie is lured to Greyfriars Kirkyard, where she's haunted by the ghosts of the women burned for witchcraft. They want revenge on Brodie and his men. Nessie learns her grandmother was executed during the North Berwick witch trials in 1597 for conspiring to kill King James VI. She left behind everything Nessie needs to stop Brodie and lay the witches' ghosts to rest. But using objects to harm people is witchcraft and there's only one penalty the courts will impose: Death." Never wish for the flames.

Longlisted for the Exeter Novel Prize and Flash 500 novel competition. Silent Dawn isn't real. She's a terrifying computer game character who erodes players' sanities. Just because her legend dates back to the 1600s, doesn't mean she's real. Just because people are vanishing, doesn't mean she's real. Just because she's standing in the corner... Reality is an illusion. Drake Skelton, Ben Crewe and Keira Black are seventeen-year-old outcasts. Their obsession with Silent Dawn: Asylum seems normal, until game features creep into their town: missing persons' posters, defaced patient records, the mutilated Victorian patient who hanged herself in the woods. Her madness infects you. As more people play the game, the veil between her reality and theirs is torn down until they can no longer trust their own minds. But this is real life. Computer game characters don't kidnap teenagers, or poison their minds with a siren song of suicide. Yet there's something...the flash of her red dress from the corners of their eyes. The shadow that creeps across their walls at night. The sinister humming that warns them they're not really alone... She's coming.

1645. The year Scotland died." Ring a ring of roses." Dirty white rags dangled from windows, like hanging men left on gallows for the city to witness their shame. The Bubonic Plague is ravaging Edinburgh. Despite the council's best efforts, people are dying. Soon there will be more people buried under Edinburgh than living in it." A pocketful of posies." When the plague doctor dies from the disease after a week, the council hires student doctor Alex McCrae, promising him one hundred pounds to cure the wretched pest. But a man who makes himself a hero, makes himself enemies. And when the council can't afford to pay McCrae, they hope he'll succumb to the disease." Ashes, ashes." But the plague isn't the only way to kill a man. And in the city of the dead, it's not just ghosts who return." We. All. Fall. Down."

Don't give your lover roses, give them nightmares. Ten disturbing stories about the dangers of falling in love. Nothing says 'I love you' like giving your lover a heart for Valentine's. Especially when it's ripped from their body before they've drawn their last breath. "I'd made a terrible mistake. I should have killed him in the shower." Gone are the expensive chocolates in fancy packaging, the wilting roses from the petrol station forecourt and the heart-print boxer shorts. Valentine's is about to get bloody. And some unfortunate lovers will learn the true meaning of 'til death us do part.'Real love is worth killing for.