We are thrilled to announce that Luna Press Publishing has acquired English World Rights for the novella In This City, Where it Rains by Lyndsey Croal, from Michael Mungiello at InkWell Management.
We are excited to share more from Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee Lyndsey Croal, whose upcoming collection, Dark Crescent, will be released this June. Her enthusiasm for folklore and gothic is bound to ignite your interest in these genres!
In This City, Where it Rains is a gothic horror novella set in an alternative version of Edinburgh. It follows Maggie, a woman haunted by ghosts that only appear in the rain – and it always rains in this city. At the edge of town, stands Tair House – a house that remembers, in a city that forgets. The mansion is so damned, it scares the clouds themselves from breaking, and the man of the house, Xavier Logan, and his wife Lucia, are harbouring a dark secret there – something that connects to Maggie and her ghosts.
Soon all roads lead to Tair House, where Maggie hopes only to uncover more about her family’s past and her muddled memories.
But the house is hungry, and something is waking deep within its roots…something that has been waiting a long time for Maggie.
Lyndsey on the novella
The novella takes some inspiration from Scottish folklore, including the weird moths lurking in Tair House and the connections to the Otherworld - sometimes depicted as a possible spirit realm, a place where supernatural creatures and deities dwell, or something inbetween. But it is also loosely inspired by history and lore around Boleskine House in the Scottish Highlands, and occultist Aleister Crowley, who had been described by some as the most evil man in Britain. In 1899, he bought Boleskine House on the edge of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. There he was said to practice dark magic, though during a ritual to banish demons he was called away and according to local tales he failed to complete the ritual, leaving a break in the veil. This has since been attributed to the strange happenings and mysterious fires in and around Boleskine House ever since.
About Lyndsey Croal
Lyndsey Croal is a Scottish author of strange and speculative fiction. Her work has appeared in over eighty magazines and anthologies, including with Apex, Analog, Weird Tales, Shoreline of Infinity, and PseudoPod. She’s a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee, British Fantasy Award Finalist, and former Hawthornden Fellow. Her novelette Have You Decided on Your Question (2023) and collection of dark science fiction tales Limelight and Other Stories (2024) are published with Shortwave Publishing. Her novelette The Girl With Barnacles for Eyes appeared in Tenebrous Press’ Split Scream Volume Five, and her second collection of Scottish folklore-inspired tales Dark Crescent is forthcoming in 2025 from Luna Press. She lives in Edinburgh with her giant cat Pippin and has a background in climate and environment policy and comms. She’s currently working on a number of longer projects in the sci fi, eco fiction, and horror space, and is represented by Michael Mungiello at InkWell Management. Find out more via www.lyndseycroal.co.uk.
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