Figurehead

Ranging from flash fiction to novelette, these stories are in

turn chilling, playful, and melancholy. The bonds of family

and of community, both in their fracturing and their healing

states, the uneasy relationship between living in the present

and yearning for the past, are themes that thread their way

through Figurehead. Every tale is rich with landscapes

haunted by loss and longing.

In this debut collection of stories Carly Holmes peers into

every corner of the strange fiction genre: from rural gothic

through to traditional ghost stories and the uncanny. Mothers

turn into trees when the sun goes down; Russian Dolls

mourn their missing sisters in rotting houses; men offer

sacrifices to the monsters who embody their inner wildness;

and murderous demons protect young girls' virginity.