Sacred and Profane

Dust Jacket and Frontispiece art by Paul Lowe

Sarob Press is pleased to present an ‘all new’ collection of stories (including two novelettes) by the ever-excellent Peter Bell, whose stories have been collected previously in four ‘out of print’ hardcover volumes: Strange Epiphanies (Swan River Press, 2012), A Certain Slant of Light, Phantasms and Revenants & Maledictions (all Sarob Press, 2012, 2015 and 2018). Peter’s novella “Labyrinth” was written for The Pale Illuminations (Sarob Press, 2019) and The Light Inaccessible, his most recent book (Zagava, 2021), is a volume of personal reflections inspired by a love of wandering the Scottish Isles.

County Donegal during the Irish Potato Famine. A Northumberland Priory. The Yorkshire Wolds in a heat-wave. The environs of a Liverpool suburban park. The Scottish Highlands in midwinter. A religious shrine in the Pyrenees. Communist Eastern Europe. In these troubled settings the protagonists are possessed by a sinister genius loci. In all these stories the characters struggle with terrors sacred and profane.

All seven tales are original to this volume.

• Lullaby
• The Ice House
• The Shadow of the Cross
• Haunted
• A Wee Dram for the Road
• Stigmata
• The Strange Death of Sophie van der Wielen

SACRED AND PROFANE is a Deluxe Hand Numbered Limited Edition Jacketed Hardcover. Lithographically Printed on 80gsm Cream Woodfree Bookwove Paper, Bound in Wibalin Cloth (Fine Linen Style), Section Sewn binding, Foil Blocked to Spine, Coloured Endpapers & Head/Tailbands. Approx 160pp including prelims etc.