CountryBoyWrites

Sound vanished. Light tore through him. Darkness. Chapter 9 of Into Darkness: the night King lost his sight, and began to see ghosts. cjcharlesauthor.substack.com…

The free Wrought World prequel on StoryOrigin is Day Born Boy now. England, 1638. Lady Joan Caldwell goes to Blackthorn House to have her child. The other mothers came for the same reason. Nobody asks what the children are for. Download the ebook free, or read all fifteen parts on Substack. Alternate Cover (AI image) storyoriginapp.com/giveaways…

Into Darkness — Chapter 6: King Takes Castle cjcharlesauthor.substack.com… Into Darkness — Chapter 6: King Takes Castle April 1945. Deep behind enemy lines. Captain Arthur King leads his Allied commando team up the treacherous cliffs and ancient walls of Schloss Nachtgeist. Inside, Nazi troops scramble to evacuate, burning documents, looting treasures and loading a mysterious, coffin-shaped lead container onto a truck. As King and Maggie search for a route to the secret laboratory beneath the fortress, a chilling warning emerges. Something guards the underground passages. Something the castle's inhabitants call a vampire. The illustrated Spectral Detective prequel continues — free to read on Substack. What lurks beneath ‘Castle Night Ghost’?

Friday's child is loving and giving. At Blackthorn House, nobody asks what the children give, or who to. England, 1638. Day Born Boy is complete on Substack: fifteen parts, one contents page. It's where the Wrought World starts. Alternate Cover (AI image) cjcharlesauthor.substack.com…

New flash fiction from the vault: From the Attic to the Cellar. In York's Gate Manor, an unassuming brown leather wallet turns up in an old overcoat, and nothing about it is ordinary. cjcharlesauthor.substack.com…

Into Darkness — Chapter 4: Flight, Check and Mate. Six pieces enter the board. Behind enemy lines, one wrong move could prove fatal. cjcharlesauthor.substack.com…

A blind hero in a noir dream. That's where Captain Arthur R. King came from. From the archive: how one dream became King in the Dark. cjcharlesauthor.substack.com… #WritingCommunity

I didn't plan this book. I dreamt it. A blind captain, a cramped 1940s office, and two women who mirror each other. That dream became the Spectral Detective. Reply DARK and I'll send you Chapter 1 of Into Darkness, free.

Here you go, Grace! Into Darkness, Chapter 1: Black Ice: cjcharlesauthor.substack.com… Enjoy the ride, and thanks for reading.

Into Darkness, Chapter 3: A Walk in the Park Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, spring 1943. Still nursing cracked ribs and a fresh scar, Captain Arthur R King arrives with an American delegation at Britain's most secret codebreaking station. His first step out of the car sends a young Wren officer's files flying, and Second Officer Margaret Clark isn't about to let him forget it. Amid ciphers, warm ale and allies who guard their secrets as fiercely as enemies, whispers drift across the pub about the SS hunting ancient relics. And King's light duties won't last forever. Before the ghosts, there was the road. cjcharlesauthor.substack.com…

Into Darkness, Chapter 1: Black Ice February 1943, the Pyrenees, half past midnight. Captain Arthur King is racing a borrowed Citroën truck through snow towards the Spanish border, with Lieutenant John Reed beside him holding a satchel of secret papers. The Milice are right behind them, and the mountain road is turning to ice. Before the ghosts, there was the road. cjcharlesauthor.substack.com…

Flashback Friday cjcharlesauthornews.substack… Flashback Friday! A little Amazon success, a Nazi on a train, and a journey back to where the Spectral Detective began! This week, I celebrate The Night of the Whispering Shade reaching #1 in a Kindle Short Reads category, revisit the rough-and-ready writing prompt that helped launch Ghost Line, and announce the illustrated, chapter-a-day serialisation of Into Darkness, complete with new interludes and bonus material. Come along for the ride!

Bred for the light. Kept in the dark. England, 1638. Blackthorn House has a sunny garden, an east wing and a doctor named Adler. Read it in order. Day Born Boy is complete on Substack: fifteen parts, one contents page. Alternate Cover (AI image) cjcharlesauthor.substack.com…

Phillip Daigle on Substack: "A blind detective who sees ghosts is the most efficient casting decision I've come across all year." That's Arthur R. King, my blind 1940s detective who sees ghosts. substack.com/note/c-36663363…

Six years old. He looks twelve. And for the first time in his life, Jack is entering the Wild World. From the archive: the start of Lost Boy Jack, free to read on Substack. cjcharlesauthor.substack.com… #WritingCommunity

Time’s Keepsake cjcharlesauthor.substack.com… Some discoveries belong in the past. Others refuse to stay there. A spot of decluttering at Gate Manor takes an unexpected turn when Daniel Blake discovers a strange device inside an old overcoat. One moment, Daniel and his wife, Angel, stand among boxes of forgotten belongings. The next, they find themselves in a Soviet bunker in 1962. Armed agents. Stolen secrets. A machine that manipulates time. And a mysterious device that seems to know exactly what it wants. But why has it chosen them? Time’s Keepsake — a short tale of mystery, adventure and the extraordinary secrets hiding among ordinary things. Sometimes the past finds you.