All the Ups and Downs: Book Tour and Giveaway: Ghosts of Thores-Cross Series by Karen Perkins

The Haunting of Thores-Cross

Ghosts of Thores-Cross Book 1

by
Karen Perkins

Genre:
Paranormal Suspense

"The ghost of a wronged young woman in the village of Thores-Cross waits 230 years to have her story told in Perkins's suspenseful and atmospheric first Yorkshire Ghost novel" - BookLife by Publishers Weekly

*Silver Medal Winner, European fiction - 2015 IPPY Book Awards

*#1 Bestseller in 6 Amazon Categories, including Ghost Suspense, British Horror and Gothic Romance

*Top 10 Bestseller in 8 more, including Historical Thrillers and Occult Horror

*Over 100 5-STAR reviews on Amazon.com

Likened by independent reviewers on Amazon to the Brontë sisters, Edgar Allen Poe, Barbara Erskine and Nathaniel Hawthorne, Karen Perkins' novels are filled with unflinching honesty and an acute understanding of human nature. She explores not only the depths of humanity, but the depths of human motivation behind the actions and pain people inflict upon each other, as well as the repercussions of these actions not only in the short term, but also the later generations who live with the implications of the past.

Emma Moorcroft is still grieving after a late miscarriage and moves to her dream house at Thruscross Reservoir with her husband, Dave. Both Emma and Dave hope that moving into their new home signifies a fresh start, but life is not that simple. Emma has nightmares about the reservoir and the drowned village that lies beneath the water, and is further disturbed by the sound of church bells - from a church that no longer exists.

Jennet is fifteen and lives in the isolated community of Thores-Cross, where life revolves about the sheep on which they depend. Following the sudden loss of both her parents, she is seduced by the local wool merchant, Richard Ramsgill. She becomes pregnant and is shunned not only by Ramsgill, but by the entire village. Lonely and embittered, Jennet's problems escalate, leading to tragic consequences which continue to have an effect through the centuries.

Emma becomes fixated on Jennet, neglecting herself, her beloved dogs and her husband to the point where her marriage may not survive. As Jennet and Emma's lives become further entwined, Emma's obsession deepens and she realises that the curse Jennet inflicted on the Ramsgill family over two hundred years ago is still claiming lives.

Emma is the only one who can stop Jennet killing again, but will her efforts be enough?

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Book Trailer:

Cursed

Ghosts of Thores-Cross Book 2

Jennet's here. No one is safe.

A skeleton is dug up at the crossing of the ways on Hanging Moor, striking dread into the heart of Old Ma Ramsgill - the elderly matriarch of the village of Thruscross. And with good reason. The eighteenth-century witch, Jennet, has been woken.

A spate of killings by a vicious black dog gives credence to her warnings and the community - in particular her family - realise they are in terrible danger.

Drastic measures are needed to contain her, but with the imminent flooding of the valley to create a new reservoir, do they have the ability to stop her and break her curse?

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Jennet

Ghosts of Thores-Cross Book 3

‘Jennet will have your heart and your fear in equal measure’

‘Through Jennet we see how cruelty can drive even the most ordinary people to hatred and, in Jennet's case, evil’

Yorkshire is in the grip of a heatwave, and Thruscross Reservoir has dried up to reveal the remains of the drowned village of Thores-Cross beneath.

Playing in the mud which coats the valley floor, four-year-old Clare Wainwright finds an old inkpot, and can’t wait to show it to her best friend, Louise. But when Louise’s mother, Emma, sees it, her reaction is shocking, and both families are plunged into their worst nightmares.

Emma knows what the inkpot portends:

Jennet has woken.

Now she wants the children.

This is not a gore-ridden, jump-scare horror story. This is more real than that. Jennet is a story about the horrific things that people do to each other, and the way we react to that maltreatment – which does not always end with death.

Jennet’s story is a horror story because it’s not necessarily fiction. It reflects the way women were treated in the time that Jennet lived. It reflects the psychology of the abuse cycle. And it reflects real life. All of it.

If, as I believe, the spirit does not die when the physical body dies, then how many spirits are looking for vengeance today?

What wrongs will you want to right when you pass through that veil? What will I?

This is the conclusion of Jennet’s story, which began in The Haunting of Thores-Cross. I hope she finds peace. I really do.

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Karen Perkins is the author of eight fiction titles: the Yorkshire Ghost Stories and the Valkyrie Series of historical nautical fiction. All of her fiction has appeared at the top of bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic, including the top 21 in the UK Kindle Store in 2018.

Her first Yorkshire Ghost Story - THE HAUNTING OF THORES-CROSS - won the Silver Medal for European Fiction in the prestigious 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards in New York, whilst her Valkyrie novel, DEAD RECKONING, was long-listed in the 2011 MSLEXIA novel competition.

Originally a financial advisor, a sailing injury left Karen with a chronic pain condition which she has been battling for over twenty five years (although she did take the European ladies title despite the injury!). Writing has given her a new lease of - and purpose to - life, and she is currently working on a sequel to Parliament of Rooks: Haunting Brontë Country.

When not writing, she helps other authors prepare their books for publishing and has edited over 150 titles, including the 2017 Kindle UK Storyteller Award winner, The Relic Hunters by David Leadbeater, and has also published a series of publishing guides to help aspiring authors realise their dreams.

Karen Perkins is a member of the Society of Authors and the Horror Writers Association.

Website * Facebook * Facebook Group * Twitter * Instagram * Amazon * Goodreads

What inspired you to write the Ghosts of Thores-Cross?

The series is set at Thruscross Reservoir, which nestles in Yorkshire moorland, and was my childhood playground. We were members of the sailing club there, and I pretty much grew up on the shores of the reservoir, as well as on and frequently in it, and it was a fabulous place to explore as a child.

At about age 10-11, my sister dared me to go up to the haunted house on my own (when the land was bought up in preparation for the reservoir, a number of properties were left empty, and not all were below the water line – it didn’t take much for at least one of them to gain the reputation of being haunted.)

Of course, being the older sister, I couldn’t refuse the dare, so set up off up the hill towards the house. A tumbledown dry stone wall was in my way, and as I scrambled over it, I spotted a regular shape amongst the stones. I pulled at the thing to release it and was amazed to find a little stoneware inkpot. I stared at it, then glanced up at the house and saw a figure in one of the upstairs window openings. There were no stairs in that house – they had fallen many years ago. I turned and ran, not caring about the laughter of my sister.

That inkpot fascinated me – why on earth would someone use it as part of a dry stone wall? I knew there must be a story behind it, and thirty years later, I wrote it: The Haunting of Thores-Cross. I still have the inkpot:

Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in The Ghosts of Thores-Cross series, and how did you come up with the concept and characters for the book?

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in my mid-twenties, resulting from a sporting injury that just never stopped hurting, and whilst I managed to keep on working for some years, eventually it made me housebound. I found that extremely difficult to deal with – I had led a very active life, sailing 2-3 times a week, plus travelling around the UK and into Europe for competitions, as well as a career as a financial advisor, and I soon became very isolated being confined to the house.

It was during this period that I started writing – the Valkyrie series of historical Caribbean Pirate fiction tapped into my fight for health and mobility, as well as the pain that I was having to deal with on a daily basis. One day I realized that I had not spoken to another person in over a week and I started thinking about isolation – if I was struggling so much in the 21st century, what would it have been like for people in centuries past?

I had a television, music, books. My family and friends were a phone call away. How would somebody cope without any of that? And what if they were a member of a small community, before cars or any form of reliable transport, too poor to own a horse, and nowhere to go even if they had one? What would happen if that community then turned on that person?

The answer was the character of Jennet.

In The Haunting of Thores-Cross we meet Jennet as a teenager, who tragically loses her parents. At first the village rally round her, but in time one of the more prominent men of the village – Richard Ramsgill - takes advantage of her and then discards her. Innocence lost, Jennet descends into hate and bitterness and the village turns on her. Her pregnancy does not go well and her bitterness to her neighbors grows. It is not long before the villagers blame her for all their ills, and accusations of being a witch soon follow. Jennet tries to use this to gain some kind of vengeance, and curses the Ramsgill family to lose all children bar one each generation. They will know loss for all eternity.

She cannot rest, and still haunts the valley in the 21st century, looking for vengeance on the Ramsgill family and forcing the modern-day Emma to give her the children she had not been able to birth herself. It does not go well.

The second book in the series, the short story Cursed describes the creation of the reservoir, which was flooded in 1966. Whilst digging a road to the new dam, bones are disturbed: Jennet. She rises and continues her quest for vengeance on the ancestors of the Ramsgills and her other neighbors, meeting her match in Old Ma Ramsgill.

In the full-length novel Jennet, she wakes once more, desperate to give life to her children, and Emma must join forces with the spirit of Old Ma Ramsgill to keep her family safe.

What can we expect from you in the future?

I have returned to Haworth, the home of the Brontë sisters for my next novel. I published Parliament of Rooks in 2017, which follows the story of modern-day Verity as she purchases a guesthouse in Haworth after a divorce – a guesthouse full of ghosts, including Emily Brontë. The historical timeline explores Haworth in the time of the Brontës, not only Emily Brontë but life in the mills and the village itself.

The next book will continue the story of Verity, plus her two close friends Lara and Jayne, but this time they have to contend with specters from 1612, the time of the Great Witch Hunt which affected both Lancashire and Yorkshire. A Question of Witchcraft should be available from early summer.