occult Archives - Ghosts of Time

So I was listening to an episode of the loopholes podcast when they began discussing haunted dolls. Though I often find old photos of dolls creepy I never realised there was a whole sub-culture invested in haunted dolls. Indeed I was astonished to find a search for “haunted dolls” on Ebay came up with 1600 such dolls for sale. These dolls came with detailed histories of when and where they came from, what their powers were and so on. Cue a discussion with my wife about buying old dolls at car boot sales and making up stories for them before selling them on ebay.

This angry child from my cabinet card collection would be a good basis for a story. Now where can I find a doll that looks like hers?

This girl and her doll look particularly spooky don’t you think?

This doll has such powers it needs six girls to restrain it.

Now this photograph, and it is a photograph not a postcard, has real potential. The Ebay seller I bought this from suggested it could be a post mortem photograph, a “popular” thing to take in Victorian times and commanding high prices for good examples from collectors today.

Ultimately I don’t think this a PM photo even though the Girl’s eyes seem to have been painted on. The doll though – now that’s a different matter.

I don’t really believe in haunted dolls though, after watching a Youtube video of twenty haunted dolls, I noticed the comments were mostly people apologising to the dolls for looking at them without permission. I didn’t apologise so if you don’t hear from me again you’ll know why.

An Update on the Heretics Series

In the original Darkness Begins blog I shared details of my writing. The first novel in a projected trilogy is Alchemists of Time. Here’s some information about the first two books and an update on what’s happening with book three.

In Alchemists of Time:

1859 Benjamin Strutt and Jane Taylor practice the occult sciences and conjure demons. Daisy is trying to escape from the squalor, the violence and life as a prostitute in the dangerous rookeries and backstreets of a Victorian town.

1959 When Alex and Maxine move into an old house, Alex finds himself transported back to the time when Benjamin Strutt lived in the house. Unless he can learn the alchemical and occult arts that Benjamin teaches him he can never go home to his own time. And Bella Nightingale is already threatening the stability of time itself with a killing spree lasting more than a hundred years.

In Ghosts of Time:

Ghosts are just people lost in time….

After ten years living as a Victorian, Alex Harrison is not sure whether he wants to return to his own time of the 1960s. Maxine, Alex’s girlfriend, can’t even remember him after her timeline was altered. When an old enemy reappears the life of Alex and everyone he holds dear comes under threat and he must unite his Victorian family and his friends in the 1960s to defeat an evil that threatens to warp the very fabric of time.

What to expect in book 3 Well of Time*

It’s six months since the apocalyptic events at the end of book 2 and all is not well. Two of the Victorians find themselves transported to the late 1960s, Benjamin Strutt has disappeared from the 1869 house and those remaining are in disarray and under siege from fresh enemies. Meanwhile Alex and friends find they need to revisit their assumptions about time paradoxes to ensure their survival.

It’s early days in the writing process for book 3 so don’t hold your breath! I’ll try not to do a George RR Martin and leave it hanging for years and years.

I’ll update you on Loake and Patel book 3 in a later blog.

(*Potential for confusion with Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time I know).