There's trouble in store for Brenda in this second outing for Whitby's fearless supernatural investigators. Poison pen letters are flying about and the garden furniture at the Hotel Miramar seems to be possessed. Not only that, but there are old flames re-igniting and deadly deities from the dawn of time making themselves apparent! Brenda has no choice but to pull herself back together... quite literally!
"This is so much more than How To Write, it's How To Live. Part-memoir and part-tutorial, this book asks 'Where do you get your ideas from?' and, miraculously, finds an answer. From life. From memory, family, lovers, heartbreak, childhood, loss and joy, all captured beautifully in these pages" -- Russell T. Davies
Brenda and Effie have made a brief escape from Whitby and are whooping it up on the continent. A brief encounter with a Parisian Phantom and his hunchbacked boyfriend sends the pair hurrying back to the North Yorkshire coast, where they have a whole new set of menaces to contend with. Here come the ineffable forces of darkness! Vengeful vampires! The long-dead Bronte sisters! And... a Panda!
An essay on the battle for our attention in the age of distraction. Attention pays. In today's online economy it has become a commodity to be bought and sold. Bombarding us with free smartphone apps and news websites, developers and advertisers have turned what and how focus our attention into the world's fastest growing industry. In exchange for our attention, information and entertainment is ever at our fingertips. But at what cost? In this essay, at once personal and polemical, meditative and militant, Julia Bell asks what has been lost in this trade off. How can we reclaim our attention? In a world of infinite distraction, how can attention become radical?
In this new volume of adventures for Brenda and Effie we do battle with vampires and mummies and haunted cats! We uncover the mystery of both Elephant Men and meet Tolstoy the Long-Eared Bat out of Hell! Brenda also gets to go back to her roots with Baron Frankenstein, and we even share an investigation at the Christmas Hotel with the famous Sherlock Holmes. Whitby has never felt so hectic, and everyone here is very glad to welcome you back..!
A fully updated comprehensive guide for improving your creative writing, including contributions from Ali Smith, Amy Liptrot, David Almond and Kit de Waal
Frank Lurcher and Tolstoy the Long-Eared Bat! Twenty years ago they were the biggest names in ventriloquism with their TV show. But all good things come to an end. Now, Frank Lurcher's a washed-out, grumpy has-been and his scraggy puppet Tolstoy is stuffed away in a trunk in the loft. But trouble is brewing. Frank suddenly declares that his teenage son, Jason, must follow in the family tradition and get a puppet of his own! But someone's got a shrewd idea who that puppet should be. Someone with green eyes, moth-eaten velvety wings, a snarling snout and two extra-large pointy ears. . . Tolstoy is making a comeback - with Jason as his new chosen puppeteer. He's out for another shot at TV superstardom, and a gruesome revenge on the showbiz puppets and people that wronged him in the past. Can Jason fight his evil controlling power? Will the lovely Lisa Turmoil, hair-stylist to the stars, help him in his battle - or just go off and give someone a perm? And if you cook a puppet ostrich in a microwave oven, does it count as murder? Paul Magrs' hilarious second novel for Simon & Schuster is for twisted children of all ages.
Trouble always has a way of finding Brenda, so when her old adversary Mr Danby starts filling the airwaves with his late-night phone-in show, it can only mean one thing. But fate's got an even bigger surprise in store because romance is in the air for Brenda and she can't deny that she's and her man were meant for each other - literally. And, as usual, Brenda and Effie face up to whatever dangers come their way with fortitude and grace - even if it does mean journeying to places beyond their wildest dreams
A new mystery bookstore has opened up in Whitby and a particular Edwardian lady novelist is suddenly all the rage. Brenda and Effie's investigations draw them away from vampire-infested Whitby into a terrifying and primordial alien land... where something very alarming indeed happens to Effie...
Penny has fled to the town that seems like a Mecca to all Goths. But Whitby is rather more than a quaint seaside resort. This is the place where Brenda and Effie have pledged to protect all mankind from demonic forces. This season they've got their work cut out for them, with the arrival of a film crew set upon remaking a cursed horror classic. Among their cast is the weirdly ageless Karla Sorenson. She's a femme fatale with a dodgy past and long-held grudges of a spooky kind...