Nocturnal Mirrors

“Something foul is knocking at the door to our world.”

A grand marble staircase prowls the night in search of passengers, Hidden Mothers whisper tales of the Wild Hunt to children carved from wood, a man is gifted candles whose flames do not dispel shadows but lure them . . . and that which lurks beyond. Such are the shapes of Otherness reflected in Nocturnal Mirrors. Across thirteen stories, Richard Gavin conjures liminal realms where the familiar is transformed by spectral and chthonic forces. Drawing upon the literary traditions of the Gothic, fin de siècle Decadence, and Surrealism, Nocturnal Mirrors gives form to the author’s conviction that our world is most vitally experienced when it is viewed through a glass darkly.

Contents

“Banquets of Embertide”
“Flagstone Clothes”
“Molly on the Stairhead”
“The Intercessor”
“Crinoline Eyrie”
“Prowling Through Throated Chambers”
“Honeymoon in Burning Bedlam”
“Stray Gates”
“A Place of Courtship”
“Lady Esmé’s Chandler”
“Upon an Iron Bed, Under the Eyes of Chaos”
“Four Stages of Alchemy”
“Tabula Rasa”
“Afterword: Honouring the Shadowland”

Cover art by Morgan Sorensen.