Zoë Apostolides And Nathan Ballingrud’s Unique Voices 2025

The Homecoming by Zoë Apostolides

The Homecoming, is Zoë Apostolides’s debut novel. Quietly disturbing, it tells the story of Ellen, a young ghost-writer sent to record the memoirs of an elderly woman living in a remote Northumberland manor. Elver House is dilapidated, its faded beauty falling to ruin.

The assignment seems simple enough: Ellen will spend a week conducting interviews at Elver House before returning to London to write Miss Carey’s autobiography. She and her editor know very little about Miss Carey besides her request to be interviewed in person; Ellen’s editor has agreed the dates and gathered scant information, but it’ll be up to Ellen to tease out the story.

The village is remote and rural, and Elver is no quaint country cottage but a wild and sprawling estate. Ellen digs deeper into the history of Elver, preparing to return to London and write her client’s book. In doing so, she must confront much more than she bargained for, and realises that Miss Carey is being haunted by more than the past.

Part mystery, part ghost story, this is a story about isolation, memory, spirits and secrets, intergenerational friendship and motherhood.

Praise for Previous Work

‘An intriguing and informative read.’ —Joy Kluver

‘This is a chilling read.’ —Amazon

‘A sensitively written and poignant account.’ —Helen Frost, Goodreads

North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud

Shirley Jackson Award Winner, World Fantasy, British Fantasy and Bram Stoker Award Finalist

“Nathan Ballingrud is one of my favorite short fiction writers.”
—  Jeff VanderMeer

“Nathan Ballingrud’s brilliant fiction brims with imagination, integrity (I do not use that term lightly), and an authentic world-weary dread that bores directly into your heart.”
— Paul Tremblay

“What Nathan Ballingrud does in North American Lake Monsters is to reinvigorate the horror tradition.”
—— John Langan

Nathan Ballingrud’s award winning debut collection is a cornerstone of contemporary horror fiction that dismantles the boundaries around genre fiction. Shattering and luminous, North American Lake Monsters explores the darker parts of the human psyche to reveal monsters, real and imagined, external and internal. They are us and we are them. What is revealed in these stories is a working class portrait of 21st century American life that is as cruel as it is fragile and as precarious as it is tenacious.

These are love stories and monster stories. Monsters who wear the faces of parents, lovers, or ourselves. The people in these stories are driven to extremes by love and by desperation. Sometimes, they are ruined; sometimes redeemed. All are faced with the loneliest corners of themselves and strive to escape.

Allow us to introduce you to your favourite horror writer’s favourite horror writer.

Purchase a copy here.

https://deadinkbooks.com/product/north-american-lake-monsters/

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