NEWS: Two new books from Broodcomb Press

Peninsula publisher Broodcomb Press have two new titles coming in late June / early July which are available for pre-order now. 

R. Ostermeier - You’re Only As Happy As Your Saddest Child 
"...collects tales that first found a home in collections and journals elsewhere, together with three new stories and 2024’s strictly limited novella Rumsy Schoolchildren. Steeped, as ever, in peninsular folklore, these nine tales are unsettling and filled with disquiet." 

And

David Oyston - Poems from the Sideshow
"David Oyston’s memoir of his early life in Riemann’s peninsular travelling show, by turns shocking, experimental and moving. An anomaly in the Broodcomb Press list, The Sideshow opens up an ill-lit door to one of the shadowier realities of life on the peninsula."

Broodcomb publisher J.M. Walsh has produced a fascinating body of work over the last few years and I'm sure these will continue that trend and these may almost certainly be for you.

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Wild Marjoram Tea

Sylvia Littlegood-Briggs
Broodcomb Press

May your pockets be deep in dust,
for each mote is a star, little one,
and your right pocket holds one world
and your left holds another.
Wild Marjoram Tea is one of the standalone texts that grow out of the peninsula’s world of weird fiction and strange tales.
As with The Night of Turns, the new book explores folklore and folk horror, yet it is also a deeply moving exploration of growing up, change and the nature of being.
Beautiful, strange and terrifying, Wild Marjoram Tea draws on a wide range of British folklore sources – from the myriad treasures of English and Scottish song to the disquieting cruelty of legend – to create a distinctive world of unsettlement.

For this latest release from this always fascinating publisher, Jamie Walsh adopts another pseudonym, this one directly related to the story he's telling here which has a more folkloric and mythic vibe than has been apparent in much of his other writing.  With distinct echoes of Sylvia Townsend Warner's 'Kingdon of Elfin' and the rural horrors of the likes of Algernon Blackwood here Walsh explores the deep dark woods and the denizens of the strange lands beyond and below.

Polly and Tom are two kids forced together by circumstance who find common ground in exploring the land and woods of their locale.  On one such excursion they come across a house deep in the trees with an enigmatic folly like graveyard in it's garden.  Befriending the residents the two are slowly drawn into a world extra to the one they inhabit.

Whilst very much a book of the moment, particularly with the current popularity of so-called 'folk horror' but more specifically this is a book with it's roots planted in the classics of strange fiction.  It builds on the heritage of the likes of Arthur Machen's 'Shining Pyramid' (read it here), George McDonald's 'Phantastes', Lord Dunsany's 'The King of Elfland's Daughter' and Hope Mirlees' 'Lud-In-The-Mist' alongside more contemporary work like Susanna Clarke's 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' and Robert Holdstock's 'Mythago Wood' cycle and as seems to be the case with all the Broodcomb Press books that I've read so far this proved to be an engrossing and compelling read.

Available from the publisher at the link above.

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Upmorchard

R. Ostermeier
Broodcomb Press

Upmorchard revisits the peninsula’s past for the tale of Watts Barlik – Barley – who is drawn to an abandoned fishing hamlet and the stone artefact housed there—
“With prompting, Mrs Lofts told him all about the discovery. Out there in the darkness was what she called a spit island, Gloy Ness. The island’s geography and composition was impermanent. The shingle was endlessly reformed by storms, the tide, littoral drift. Ten years previously a feral storm uncovered a vast area of human-made artefacts. Gloy Ness was roughly five miles long, and it shifted quickly in tough-weather years so whatever the artefacts were, they took them out in case of damage (or loss) had the island reformed over it.
By this time Barley was like a dog with its teeth stuck in a toffee. He leaned towards what he could see of the woman, hoping the dark would rattle more out of her. It did—.”

Last year, on the advice of a friend I took a dive into 'A Trick of the Shadow' the debut collection from 'R. Ostermeier' and a very fine read it turned out to be.  Shades of Arthur Machen and Robert Aickman wandered through the stories and imbued them with a delicious rural strangeness and now with this limited edition hardback novella Broodcomb have provided us with another fabulous excursion into the unknown.

In this new novella we are back on the Peninsula (the location of all of Broodcomb's fictions) in the company of a young academic, Barley, taking a long walking holiday through the countryside.  His travels take him to a steam train which in turn takes him to the location of an enigmatic archeological find.  Weedling his way onto the site he is met by the remains of a giant stone figure and it's custodians, a driven and mentally fragile researcher and his very concerned friend.

The researcher (Arthur) is trying to translate the writing on the stones but has become academically isolated due to his unorthodox methods.  Barley is soon drawn into Arthur's world view and the two of them embark on a bold plan to understand the stones.

There's a Lovecraftian feel here with echoes of the watery Innsmouth stories and also of the Irish myth of the Fomorians - an ancient sea dwelling race that preyed on the early settlers.  Ostermeier teases out the history of the stones and leaves us with a fractured snapshot of a troubled time and of a violent history that perhaps has yet to end.

Available from the publisher at the link above.

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

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A Trick of the Shadow

R. Ostermeier
Broodcomb Press

R. Ostermeier lives and works on the peninsula. This first collection of strange tales draws predominantly on the region’s folklore and history, yet also includes first-hand accounts of contemporary disquiet.
A Trick of the Shadow contains the extraordinarily unnerving ‘Object’ and the disturbing, Arthur Machen-inspired ‘A Tantony Pig’, as well as the novella ‘Bird-hags’, which in all truth might not be for you.

This book has been hovering around the edges of my attention for a while now but I finally dug into it on the recommendation of a friend and I'm very glad I did.

I'd gathered from what I'd seen that there was a Machen vibe and this proved especially the case in opener 'A Tantony Pig' which owes, an acknowledged, debt to that author and to his 'The Ritual' in particular.  It's an excellent play on the idea and easily finds on its own feet as a rather wonderful little strange tale.

Next up, 'Finery', is the story of a weaver and the dresses she makes for the women of the town; private clothes to be treasured and admired in secret as they speak to one's inner being.

'The Chair' I thought had the air of a 1970s 'Amicus' anthology episode to it or an episode of one of Hammer's TV shows with its mix of pseudoscience and dream horror - particularly inflicted on a child.

Less successful is 'Object' that for me seemed to be trying just a tad too hard to walk an Aickmanesque path.  It's eminently readable but for the first time in the book things did feel a tiny bit forced.

'The Intruder' continues with the Aickman style strangeness and is more successful in its telling of a man's terror at the consequences of a rash decision to embrace a new weight loss procedure.

We can again feel Machen's presence in 'The Bearing' a folk horror tale of an annual ritual whereby a series of coffins are carried around a town before the book ends with its longest tale 'Bird Hags' a nicely creepy amalgam of all the touchstones of the previous stories.

Now I've spent much of this review comparing it to other people and things which is something I generally try to avoid but here it felt unavoidable as Ostermeier is wearing these influences with pride which doesn't diminish what's here at all as the stories all work on their own merits and 'A Trick of the Shadow' proved to be a simply wonderful read.

Available from the publisher at the link above.
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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.