Licensed Premises, page 12
published by salt publishing 2022
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Copyright © Neil Campbell 2022
Neil Campbell has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 2022 by
Salt Publishing Ltd
12 Norwich Road, Cromer, Norfolk nr27 0ax United Kingdom
www.saltpublishing.com
Salt Publishing Limited Reg. No. 5293401
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
isbn 978 1 78463 250 2 (Paperback edition)
isbn 978 1 78463 251 9 (Electronic edition)
Typeset in Granjon by Salt Publishing
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A
Sky Hooks
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From the award-winning author of West and The Mission House Some New Ambush is the first collection of short stories from award-winning writer Carys Davies. Love, loss, birth, death, betrayal, madness – they all lie in wait for Davies's characters in their startlingly different worlds: a dry cleaner's shop in contemporary Chicago, a mining town in South Wales in the sixties, a lunatic asylum in nineteenth century northern England. Shot through with wit and aching emotional poignancy, these stories tell of how we attempt to confront the things life throws in our path – often when we least expect them, and in places where we never thought to look. They tell of the mistakes we make along the way, and of how we try to deal with the whole difficult, unpredictable business. There is the boy who steps into his best friend's clothes in a desperate bid to fulfil his dreams, the man who comes up with an amazing new invention to win the heart of the woman he loves, the bored young wife doomed to live on an island where everything is red, the middle-aged woman who finds a baby in the sand and passes it off as her own.
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Evie Mathews and her son Alfie flee from her abusive partner Seth to spend New Year with her half-brother Luke at their late father's summer home on the Suffolk Coast, only to find Seahurst abandoned and Luke missing. Evie searches for her brother, filled with a deepening dread that something is very wrong at Seahurst and their father's death may not have been suicide after all. As Seahurst's ancient and sinister secrets unfurl around her, Evie fears the souls of the dead will soon claim another terrible revenge.
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Have you ever boarded your morning commute and wished you'd never arrive at your destination? That is what happens to the protagonist of The Way to Work. Having boarded what he assumes to be his usual 8:08 service, he soon discovers that all is not as it first seemed. Does this train stop at any station? Do the carriages ever come to an end? And where is the colleague he thought he saw, as he took his place in the quiet coach? Our narrator reflects on his job as salesman for a cat litter manufacturer as he wanders down-train in search of answers – yet the sliding doors that close behind him appear to be malfunctioning, and every person he meets seems to remember very little of their past. Seduction, destiny and salvation all come into play as this relentless novel unfolds, and we discover precisely where the 8:08 is heading and just who is in charge.
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Neil Campbell, Licensed Premises
