Netherwood

A sensuous, vivid and unsettling modern gothic tale about a couple who move to the seaside town of Hastings and find themselves living in the former home of a notorious local occultist over whom the shadow of former town resident Aleister Crowley looms large. Ideal for fans of Andrew Michael Hurley or Francine Toon. After personal trauma and professional failure in London, Justine and Adam move to Hastings, hoping that the charming fisherman's cottage overlooking the sea will be the perfect place to make a new life together. But their new home holds many secrets, including a cave at the back of it, and a witch bottle said to ward off bad sprits. Soon, they discover a dark history that haunts this seaside town.   Former occupant of their house, John Malachy, was an occult celebrity at the height of the Sixties counterculture, obsessed with macabre rituals and chaos magic that led to shocking scandal and his mysterious suicide. Strange events escalate, Justine becomes haunted by the ghost of a young girl, Adam enchanted by an unearthly creature, and they begin to learn of something terrible that Malachy once enacted in the cave.   It all leads back to the notorious Aleister Crowley - the Great Beast - whose death in Hastings years before unleashed a dangerous force that still exerts a powerful influence on our times, and a legacy that starts a grim chain of events with grave consequences for Justine, Adam and even the world.