Quantum of Solstice

Book eight of The Londum Series. From an Alternate Victorian England called Albion, three spooky short stories set during the Yuletide season, featuring Rufus Cobb, Adele Curran, Jim Darby and Thornton Wells. In the depths of winter, the worst snowstorm in fifty years is ravaging Albion.
In these three stories our heroes come face to face with what it means to live ... and to die. Yet despite facing their own mortality, perhaps they can still find a measure of Yuletide spirit, a Quantum of Solstice, perhaps?

The Last Present

What’s so unusual about seeing a ghost at a spiritualist meeting? Nothing you might think, except Adele is the only one that can see him, not the medium. And he wants her help to stop the man who murdered him from doing the same to his family. Adele, Cobb and Won Lungh set out in a snowstorm to try and stop this but it may cost them their own lives.

A Snowball in Hell’s Chance

Jim Darby comes across two young brothers trying to survive on the streets of Londum. He buys them some food but they refuse any further help and he doesn’t see them again. Or does he? Who is the shadowy figure he sees through the falling snow, throwing snowballs at him? And why does he want Jim to follow him?

Death on the Cards

Thornton Wells is drinking and reminiscing with his old friend, Sir Harold Ingleby, when Thornton tells him about what happened to him once, as a young man. ‘You’ll be the Death of me,’ ‘Facing your Death,’ ‘Look Death in the eye,’ those are just sayings ... aren’t they?

And a bonus poem

‘Twas the night before Solstice.

(Also contains a URL to where you can download a free MP3 of the author reading this poem.)

Part of the Londum series