The Shade In The Sands And Other Stories

‘My eyes wander to the hieroglyph of a wall that’s not here in the bazaar, and I realise that I imagine too much. I beg my mind to look away, lest the dead wake and witness me watching.’ - The Shade In The Sands.

Five new Gothic stories celebrating Egyptian Gothic Horror. From the author of the Muldoon supernatural thrillers comes a new collection set in the period that changed Europe's understanding of Egyptian history forever.

Inspired by classics such as Conan Doyle’s The Ring Of Thoth and Marsh’s The Beetle, The Shade In the Sands And Other Stories offers a fresh take on Egyptian Gothic Horror. At the height of Gothic Egyptomania (1884-1920) the horror stories of Mummies and cursed artefacts eclipsed the vampire story. Hanna Delaney aims to revive the popularity of this craze with this eerie Gothic collection exploring horror, romance, ancient curses, lost tombs and haunted artefacts.

Inside this collection are five new Gothic horror tales inspired by classic Victorian and Edwardian Egyptomania. Fans of Mummy Horror and romantic subgenres such as the 90s blockbuster The Mummy and classic stories such as H Ryder Haggard's She will enjoy the atmospheric blend of dark humour, supernatural horror and unravelling Gothic mysteries.

What's inside?

📜The Shabti: In the midst of the Blitz of 1941, precious Egyptian artefacts are transported from The World Museum in Liverpool to nearby country houses for safe keeping. The Ecklands receive a Sarcophagus and some smaller treasures in their country home in Frodsham. All seems fine until Mr Eckland takes a mysterious woman as his lover... a woman who he'd do anything for, whatever the cost.

📜Six Geese a-Laying: Timothy Wicklow arrives at Harewood Court for a Christmas party in December, 1920. He doesn't know the host, but as he has no friends or living relatives to spend Christmas with, he accepts. Around a blazing hearth, Mrs Virginia Dawson-Langley will tell him a Christmas story that will change his life forever.

📜The Shade In the Sands: Tom Parker, a young English photographer based in Giza, hasn't taken a photograph in over six months. When the wife of his missing friend arrives in Giza on the anniversary of her husband's death, Tom must face the horrors of what happened a year before, and prevent anything from happening to her, too.

📜The Maiden's Hand: Peter's cousin Wilfred has brought his university friends to their country home for the weekend. Peter's uncle, a successful explorer, has many Egyptian artefacts around the house, including one he calls 'The Maiden's Hand'. Peter finds himself inexplicably attached to the mummified hand, and when his cousin's guests awaken something as old as it is sinister, Peter must break the curse before the world as they know it is over.

📜The Woman With The Emerald Eye - Colonel Lindsay and his wife host their friends for Christmas and New Year. At an unwrapping in the colonel's study, his elderly mother takes a macabre interest in the body of the woman on the table.

Egyptian Horror and Egyptian Gothic Horror especially, is a creepy subgenre of horror that saw its biggest moment in the 19th century. Fans of both contemporary and classic supernatural horror, paranormal mysteries and horror romance will enjoy this collection.