Category Archives: fiction

Yer, so about the tower…

Posted on November 11, 2024 by Mark Hayes

The Tower is one of those stories… A story that people tend to remember and ask about. It has a perfect ending in my opinion. Which is to say the ending is open to the readers imagination. This tends to generate the same question from almost every reader “What is the tower?” Continue reading →

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Music and words

Posted on October 30, 2024 by Mark Hayes

Passing Place remains the book of which I am most proud. I love all my novels but this one is the one with the most blood in the ink, the most slivers of my soul between its pages. Its a tale of loss and love, of hope and grief , and of choices, the choice we all have….

Also, there really is a forest in the cellar. As well as a Dryad waiting tables when she is not in the back garden with her tree. A gunslinger with a tale of the mythology in the old west. An Inuit whose spear is dropping blood on the bar and speak of tears like diamonds. The wisest doorman in all the universe who will teach you many things, including how to drink brandy the right way. A girl in the corridor with eyes in her hands. A literal devil called Lyal. A grey man form a grey world marveling at the colour in the swirl of his mop water. A chef who understand how to may causality sandwiches. Continue reading →

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Redux: Beguiling darkness: Tethered

Posted on October 15, 2024 by Mark Hayes

This is a fabulous ride of a novel, through a dark gritty fantasy landscape, with strong characters, betrayals, surprises, shocks, a whole world of imagination to explore and wonder at. There will I am sure be more to come, and I was delighted to go back to it and see how much what had been a good book when I read the early draft four year ago has been revise and polished into something so much more than it was. Continue reading →

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The End of the world is not the Ragnarök

Posted on September 20, 2024 by Mark Hayes

My axe is cold, frost crisscross’s the handle and the fingers that hold it, but the blade is sharp still and blood still flows in he that would wield it.
The Ragnarök is over, we are what remain Continue reading →

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The Return of a Semblance of Hope

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Mark Hayes

Time has past… Strange epochs are upon us, the stars are finally right and the thing that was prophesied will now come to pass… Also there make be coco! Continue reading →

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Authors of Folly and Madness

Posted on July 8, 2024 by Mark Hayes

In a dimly lit basement. Beneath the grim streets of a post industrial city whence dark satanic mills long since ceased to pushing dense black smoke in to the air. On a wooden operating table, complete with ancient leather straps … Continue reading →

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Men in Dark Tweed #10

Posted on June 28, 2024 by Mark Hayes

The Men in Dark Tweed were created on a whim while I was working on my current WIP novel, a Victorian Urban Fantasy entitled ’Lucifer Mandrake and the Hanoverian Proxy’ The new, somewhat nefarious Home Secretary sets up a plain clothes … Continue reading →

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Folly and Madness

Posted on June 25, 2024 by Mark Hayes

A month ago, in the early dawn light, on the banks of the river Tees a small group of writers, readers, and bibliophiles stood shivering in the mist as it rose off the water, into the fridge air. A profound … Continue reading →

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Harvey’s not dead/Men in Dark Tweed

Posted on April 9, 2024 by Mark Hayes

Over the last several years I have been involved in the Harvey Duckman Anthologies project. First as a writer, occasionally a mentor and then latterly as part of the editorial staff . I have spoken of it here more than … Continue reading →

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Hope is not eternal

Posted on November 3, 2023 by Mark Hayes

All things end, some with a whimper, some with a bang, some too early, some too late, but all things end. The default state of the universe is entropy, and no story is complete until the final line. And so … Continue reading →

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